A TV Network Killed the Big East (and It’s Not the One in Bristol)

Brett McMurphy and Andy Katz of ESPN.com have reported that NBC has verbally offered the remnants of the Big East between $20 million and $23 million per year for six years for the conference’s TV rights for all sports (including both football and basketball). That would be approximately $2 million per year for each school in the league. By way of comparison, each individual school in the Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12 (and depending upon who you talk to, soon the ACC) will make about as much TV money on its own annually than the entire Big East conference. This is the latest news in the stunning decimation of the Big East since the league rejected an offer from ESPN two years ago worth an average of $130 million per year. During that time frame, the Big East has lost 5 football members that have actually played in the league (Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virginia, Rutgers and Louisville), 8 non-football members (Notre Dame, Georgetown, Villanova, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Providence, DePaul and Marquette) and 2 3 schools that defected before they even played a down of Big East football (TCU, Boise State and San Diego State). In the middle of that process, the conference also lost its place in the college football postseason structure, where it failed to secure a “Contract Bowl” slot (with its former BCS AQ counterparts Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC) and is now part of the “Gang of Five” non-power conference group (with the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West Conference and Sun Belt as new counterparts). The Big East made a huge gamble in taking its sports rights to the open market when it turned down that lucrative ESPN offer and even the largest conference naysayers couldn’t have predicted how badly that decision would backfire.

The argument that ESPN systemically devalued the Big East to the point where it was effectively destroyed is taken as gospel by many Big East partisans. It started back in October 2011 with a quote from the then-AD at Boston College stating that ESPN “told [the ACC] what to do” in the wake of Pitt and Syracuse defecting to the ACC. This line of thinking then continued on as the Big East lost more access in the new college football playoff system than any other conference (in fact, they’re likely going to be the only league that will end up making less money in the new format than it does in the current BCS system) and then suffered a literal avalanche of defections in the past 5 months.

However, it wasn’t the Bristol-based network that effectively killed off the Big East as we once knew it. Instead, Fox, in its pursuit of becoming the main competitor to ESPN in US sports television, ended up pulling the trigger. Consider two critical moves:

(1) Big Ten expands with Maryland and Rutgers – When the Big Ten added Maryland from the ACC and Rutgers from the Big East, Jim Delany wasn’t looking to aid its first tier national TV slate that’s being shown on the Disney networks of ABC and ESPN (unlike the addition of Nebraska in 2010). Instead, the main beneficiary from this expansion was Fox, which is 51% owner of the Big Ten Network (BTN), since it now has an argument that the network should be carried on basic cable in the New York City and Washington, DC markets. If anything, this move was terrible for ESPN since it makes Fox/BTN much stronger on the East Coast and took away schools from the two main conferences – the ACC and Big East – in which the Worldwide Leader owns all tiers of conference multimedia rights. Without Fox and the BTN, the Big Ten doesn’t take Rutgers directly from the Big East or indirectly causing Louisville to defect (since the ACC replaced Maryland with the Cardinals). The Big East still had the ability to survive as a viable football conference with Louisville and Rutgers in the fold, but once they were gone, Boise State (and subsequently San Diego State) didn’t believe that they would receive enough TV money to justify being complete western geographic outliers.

(2) Catholic 7 leave the Big East… because Fox convinced them to do so – A few weeks after the Rutgers and Louisville defections, the 7 remaining Catholic non-football schools (DePaul, Georgetown, Villanova, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Providence and Marquette) decided to split off from the Big East’s football members in order to form a new league (hereinafter called the “Catholic 7″). Multiple reports from both ESPN (including the McMurphy/Katz report linked above) and Sports Illustrated have stated that Fox is the leading suitor for the rights to the new Catholic 7 league with offers of between $30 million and $40 million per year depending upon whether it has 10 or 12 schools. That represents the Catholic 7 making around $3 million per year for basketball rights, which is more than the NBC offer to the Big East of $2 million per year for both basketball and football.

Do you see what occurred here if this is true? Fox approached the Catholic 7 before they split off, which means it’s not so crazy to believe that Fox wanted them to split off. So, if you believe that Fox is overpaying for the Catholic 7, then you might be right. However, the point is that Fox needed to overpay the Catholic 7 in order to serve as a catalyst for them to split off. If Fox just merely offered “fair market value” to the Catholic 7, then they likely would have stayed in the hybrid. (Anyone that thought that the Catholic 7 would have split off without the knowledge that they’d be getting paid more compared to staying in the hybrid Big East isn’t thinking straight.) There needed to be an extraordinary financial windfall from Fox in order for the Catholic 7 to take the extraordinary step of splitting off from the Big East football schools. As a result, it’s almost pointless to try to compare the on-the-court basketball quality of the Catholic 7 versus the New Big East. The amounts that are being offered by Fox to the Catholic 7 reflect a “blood money” premium offer that they couldn’t refuse, whereas the Big East isn’t going to garner any premium at all and will be subject to the “normal” market forces in play.

That leads to a corresponding question: why would Fox do this? Why would it want to pay this much for the Catholic 7 instead of, say, simply bidding for the entire hybrid Big East? Well, let’s take a step back and examine what Fox actually needs in terms of sports content. The reality is that Fox (and when I say “Fox”, I really mean its new cable networks Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 as opposed to over-the-air Fox) already has a fairly full sports slate in the fall with Major League Baseball, NASCAR, Pac-12 football and Big 12 football rights. As a result, they don’t have much of a need for other college football games. The biggest programming gap that Fox has right now is during the winter, where its cable networks are pretty much wide open outside of some Pac-12 basketball rights.

I’ll put on my own tinfoil hat here, where my semi-educated guess is that Fox: (a) no longer had much interest in the New Big East football product after Rutgers and Louisville left, (b) still had interest in the Big East’s basketball product in order to provide winter programming and (c) didn’t want to get into a bidding war with NBC and/or ESPN to buy a Big East package for both basketball and football when all it really wanted was basketball. As a result, Fox went straight to the Catholic 7 (who represented most of the schools that they wanted to showcase for basketball, anyway) and offered up enough money that would simultaneously be a financial boon to those schools while allowing the cable network operation to save money compared to a competitive bidding situation for the all-sports hybrid Big East rights. It’s the very essence of a “win-win” for both the Catholic 7 and Fox here.

Meanwhile, the Big East has been left with only one legit suitor with NBC since Fox obviously has no interest (seeing that it made an offer to the Catholic 7 to split up the league), CBS has little funding for its fledgling CBS Sports Network and ESPN has had lukewarm feelings toward the league. Without a bidding war, the already thrifty Comcast/NBC organization zero incentive to drive up the price of the Big East on its own, so this very low offer reflects that reality. Either NBC takes the Big East rights or ESPN comes in to match it with its right of first of refusal (which the McMurphy/Katz article notes that the Worldwide Leader has), but there’s no other potential fountain of cash out there.

Sometimes, it’s not quite as simple as saying “UConn is a much better basketball program than DePaul, therefore, UConn should get paid more than DePaul”. Timing matters in conference realignment and TV contracts, so in this case, Fox had a specific need in a situation where the Catholic 7 was in the right place at the right time. Granted, that’s no consolation for the fans of schools that are left in the Big East and who may need to start hanging up pictures of Rupert Murdoch on their dartboards instead of Mickey Mouse.

@bullet – Yes, that’s very true. Fox could very well make money on the deal (or at least justify it in the event that Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 end up with the basic cable carriage that they’re looking for). I think the overall idea is that it was going to take a large amount to cajole a group from the status quo position.

Precisely ~ there is a difference between “fair market value” in the sense of $1 more than the second highest bid and “fair market value” in the sense of a fair share of the advertising and cable rights market value of the content. That is, “fair” as in “value in a fair rights market auction” versus “fair” as in “a fair share of prospective rights revenue”.

Consider ESPN’s $130m offer for the current Big East. At 30% of the value for BBall, that places a value of $40m for current Big East Basketball. And that was the maximum “contract share” promised in the deal with Boise State, but arguably. Given the imbalance between strength of Big East Football and Basketball, Basketball could well have been 35% to 40% of the prospective revenues driving that bid, which would price Big East basketball including Rutgers (market) and Louisville (brand) at $45m-$50m.

So $30m-$40m as a fair market value for the Basketball rights of the C7 subtract Rutgers, Louisville, UConn and UC but plus some more of the cream of non-football Division 1 seems quite reasonable.

As the post says, its paying more than one would have to bid of the league already existed, but if Fox wanted the league to exist in the first place, they had to pay a “fair share of prospective revenues” value, rather than a “competitive market value in an auction market”

I was thinking you missed them but wasn’t sure of the dates. How can you forget the conference killers? Darrell Royal once said of TCU after an upset loss, “They’re like cockroaches. Its not what they pick up and carry off. Its what they fall into and mess up.”

The conferences they have fallen into:
RIP TIAA
RIP SWC
RIP WAC
CUSA shadow of its former self (only UAB and USM charter members)
Big East shadow of its former self (only UConn long time member and not for football)
The MWC would join that list, but TCU joined the Big East and jinxed it, sending Boise and SDSU back to the MWC. Still they lost BYU and Utah.

Which reminds me that given the TV offer, the NuBigEast might think about their basketball standing and number of Big Dance appearances, and be better off with Southern Miss (current Sagarin BBall 50th at 80.77, about the same as the average ranking of the Pac-12 and Mountain West and higher than the #7 SEC, #8 A-10 or #9 Missouri Valley) rather than Tulsa (current Sagarin BBall 160th at 73.32, which is dragging down the average of #11 Conference-USA)

Ah, and I see they had one run to the regional finals. 12-14 in NCAA tournament appearances, 11-8 in the past twenty years looks a lot better than their more recent rankings ~ its just that the most recent of those appearances was 2002.

of course the only person still active in College Athletics that was involved in the death of the SWC and collaterally the WAC. is UT’s Deloss Dodd. You may want to check for his fingerprints on all of those as well.

For now, Connecticut is the biggest loser, diminishing from a multiple national basketball champion and BCS bowl participant to a member of a league of also-rans. The ACC won’t take Storrs until it needs it (probably alongside Cincinnati)…although if the Big 12 was sufficiently Machiavellian, it might pursue the two UCs, if only to destabilize the ACC by depriving it of the two programs it would need if replenishment was required. In a scenario where Virginia and Georgia Tech go to the Big Ten, the ACC would be stuck at 12 — and if the Big 12 then successfully wooed Florida State and Clemson, it would dwindle to 10 for football, lose its CCG and look a lot less attractive to Notre Dame.

<em… if the Big 12 was sufficiently Machiavellian, it might pursue the two UCs, if only to destabilize the ACC by depriving it of the two programs it would need if replenishment was required….

There’s Machiavellian, and then there’s foolish. Taking the two UCs would cost the Big XII too much money, for too little value. If the ACC is unstable enough to lose Virginia and GT, then the Big XII can probably hook FSU and Clemson without taking on two extra schools that it clearly doesn’t need.

the ACC would be stuck at 12 — and if the Big 12 then successfully wooed Florida State and Clemson, it would dwindle to 10 for football, lose its CCG and look a lot less attractive to Notre Dame.

The ACC wouldn’t be stuck at 12; it would replenish, most likely with USF and one other school, such as Memphis or Navy. Notre Dame doesn’t care whether the ACC has 12 or 10 schools; it only cares if the ACC continues to have its bowl access.

FSU only wants to go to the Big XII unless it has ‘multiple’ partners, just Clemson probably doesn’t work YET as FSU prefers the B10/SEC. It sounds like FSU wants Miami, Clemson and one other ACC school.

Yes, this is why the Big12 is a “second mover”. All the schools that would be worth its while to add are not going to be going to the Big12 unless the ACC is destabilized. And the most worthwhile ones wouldn’t pick a Big12 invitation unless they are confident there is no BigTen and/or SEC (depending on school) invite coming.

If the Big Ten or SEC moves, and then especially if the other moves, there will be opportunities, though the Big12 may still have to add four in order to construct a “Big14 East” that is preferable to sticking it out in a “New ACC” that bears a striking resemblance to the Old Big East.

I’m curious where you’re getting that from. The Louisville AD said that, before a last-minute switch was made, UConn was very close to getting the ACC invite after Maryland left. A number of ACC sources said that UConn and Cincy would probably get the next two bids.

So the ACC has raided and pillaged five Big East schools (Miami, VaTech, BC, Syracuse, and Pitt) dating back to 2004, but the plucking of Rutgers by the B1G (which then allowed the ACC to take a sixth (!!) Big East team in Louisville) is seen as the catalyst that broke the conference’s ability to be a player in big boy football.

Damn you, Delanyyyyyyyy!

I know. Timing matters. Yada yada. But my god the ACC gets such a pass. Now, after being the biggest conference cannibal of the last decade, they get to play the poor victim card while mean ol’ Delany and Slive come together to discuss how best to carve up the most valuable parts of this conference.

It could have as easily gone in the other direction, had the Big East been more aggressive than the ACC. It could have wooed Clemson, Georgia Tech and Florida State as all-sports members in 2002 or so, joining a football conference that already had Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Rutgers and Temple. With Connecticut reaching I-A status, you would have had 12 football members and a CCG. Meanwhile, the ACC would have shrunk to six members and would have been the league forced to take in Conference USA emigres. There was going to be only one strong conference east of the Alleghenies.

Not “easily”. That was the problem with the hybrid structure to the old Big East. You couldn’t add any new teams without basically overloading the basketball side of things. And Clemson, GTech and FSU were not going to join as football only members. The Big East had no ability to grow.

Um, yea… Actually a lot of people are upset about the Big East being broken up (mostly Big East basketball fans), and the B1G, Delany in particular, is definitely being portrayed as a destroyer of college sports, long time conference rivalries, etc. in the quest to maximize profits.

I haven’t heard a peep from anyone. Have you heard it from anyone outside the northeast? It would be a bigger story if the ACC collapsed, but the BE has been seen as a dead conference walking for a long time.

MHVer3 reporting tonight that B1G will meet in April to vote on 2-6 more members (this comes from a source at OSU and a source at Penn State). If they go past 16, they go to 10 game schedule. UVA is a lock, at least right now. Believes this will open up Orange Bowl to renegotiation.

That is some smart crystal-ball reporting. Around the new year, “The Dude” was reporting dates for UVA announcing that it was moving as “early next week”. Giving himself until April for the VOTE and no prediction of the announcement gives MHVer much more leeway.

If you think about it the BE schools all won … that is those who left the league. Louisville, Pitt, and Syracuse get somewhat more than the BE turned down. West Virginia, TCU, and especially Rutgers quite a bit more. And the C7 will double their revenue.

The losers are three: USF, UConn, and Cincy.

Two of them (USF and UConn) have terrible and stupid and way overpaid leadership, and the 3rd (Cincy) simply didn’t have enough time to get things together – they need another 5-10 years like Jurich had at Louisville.

Good luck Bearcats, screw the other two. As for the BE, the rest are happy (LOL the newbees bought the Brooklyn Bridge)

I’m still hopeful that UC will get into the ACC. Sometime before August 15th, there will be some announced departures from the ACC (but perhaps not enough departures to make The Dude and MHVer truly happy) and the ACC will reload.

Forget, even Boise State came out better, pushed the MWC to rework their TV contract and their distributions, which while not FBS level, could easily double what the new Big East works out to for each school.

At Big East meeting in Dallas last month, a rumor was floated that the Catholic 7 would bring in UConn and Cinci in all sports other then football, then UConn and Cinci would place their football teams in the MWC.

UConn came out and publicly denied the rumors, but now that it looks like UConn and Cinci will get no more then $2 million, and the Catholic 7 will get $3 million in TV revenue, why not explore that option? You would be in a better basketball conference that geographically makes more sense then the Big East now, and if you can make enough in the MWC just to pay the cost to travel, they would still make more then they would in the Big East. Likely the MWC could pry away Houston and SMU from the Big East if this happened, so you would then be in, by far, the best non auto birth playoff conference, and even if Houston and SMU don’t come along, the MWC would be equal at worst compared to the conference your leaving.

This obviously would be beneficial to UConn and Cinci and in a vacuum great for the Catholic 7 (Classic East) which would be retaining the two best remaining teams from the Big East and for the MWC your adding two teams that have made it to BCS games and give you some exposure for your teams on the east coast. The problem I see is that if you want to build a stable league would you bring in two schools that will not be happy until they are in the ACC or another big conference? Do you want to deal with rumors that they are leaving each year? Would it be worth the temporary advantage?

I think it could still be worth it. I think if you build your league in a way that UConn and Cinci make sense, but if they leave you don’t have to scramble to find new teams. If the Catholic 7 picked up 5 teams as is rumored to get to 12, then threw UConn and Cinci on top of that with the other university and your TV partner understanding that this is possibly only a temporary bonus and then when they leave we are still a tight 12, then it could possibly work.

The biggest advantage of bringing along UConn and Cincy is that it would give the C7 the 2 FB votes they need to actually dissolve the Big East. That would allow them to leave whenever they wanted without penalty and let them keep the name “Big East” amongst other things.

@Frug, good point. This would not likely accelerate departure as the talk right now is summer of 2014, summer of 2013 is probably not possible at all… though the Big East does not have a basketball media contract in place for 2012-2013 yet (it does cover football for 2013 season).

But as you say, If you could get UConn and Cincy to come along, even if just for a few years, being able to dissolve the league, take the name, and distribute credits and departure penalties the way you would like would be highly advantageous.

Honestly, other then South Florida, the remaining teams under this scenario shouldn’t receive any revenue anyways since at this moment they have not contributed anything.

The reality of the matter is Connecticut , Cincinnati, South Florida, SMU & Houston will not remain in the Big East (Or whatever it is called) five years from now. One thing I do not see is the Huskies and Bearcats parking their teams in the Mountain West until the move somewhere else. Why? If I am the Mountain West, I see an opportunity to pick up two Schools who will more likely make a long-term commitment to my Conference (Houston & SMU) who are located far closer to where most of my Schools play (Texas), plus Houston will be heading into a brand new facility, so the growth potential is there as well. South Florida looks like a real possibility for the ACC, if the Conference has Miami & (or) Florida State poached by the Big XII, SEC or Big 10. Basically, Connecticut and Cincinnati are in the same boat as USF (Although I believe USF should be a higher priority for the ACC (If Florida State leaves which I suspect will happen)). I think the next two Schools to switch Conferences will be SMU & Houston, to makes too much sense for all concerned.

The benefit to the Mountain West is expansion into Texas (Without adding the likes of UTEP). Keep in mind Texas is one of the top recruiting areas in the Country. Beyond that, Ii you look at some of the Schools in the Mountain West, there are some that are either who cares (San Jose St), offer little growth opportunity (Wyoming), or Both (New Mexico). As far as being unbeaten in the Big East is concerned, keep in mind, Houston will NOT go unbeaten in the Big East, because they likely will not be playing in the Big East (I see them in the Mountain West).

Precisely. Invite UC and UConn for Olympic Sports into the Classic East, and they could well have their exit already announced in the Classic East’s first season.

The only stability in admitting a football school to the Classic East would be a school that has thrown in the towel on chasing a bigger conference membership, and that kind of school wouldn’t be applying to be FB-only in the MWC over halfway across the country … they’d be applying to be the second FB-only school in the MAC.

Imagine if Fox, somehow, got UCONN in the B1G ( I realize what a monumental long shot that would be). That would put Fox in ESPN’s back yard. It makes me wonder why ESPN would not push for the ACC to take UCONN when they had the chance?

If Fox Sports doesn’t have much of a need of additional college football games with its 51% share of the BTN along with Pac 12 and Big XII games, do you think they will make a competitive bid for the Big Ten’s Tier 1/2 football and men’s basketball when the current television contracts end in a few year’s time?

@cutter – I think Fox would be very interested in the Big Ten 1st tier rights, but it would likely be more to fill out slots on the over-the-air network with its commitment to prime time games along with open Saturday afternoon spots as more MLB games shift to cable. The Big East has little to no value as an over-the-air property, so it would have been a pure cable play for Fox (and that’s not where they need more college football).

Now, what’s interesting is that ESPN might be the more desperate party here. Losing Big Ten games would leave gaping holes in the schedules if ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. My long-term belief is that ESPN won’t let that happen – just like they did to keep the NFL and SEC, ESPN will pay up to the Big Ten. Fox might get a smaller package (e.g. a prime time package that could be created if you read between the lines of what Delany said about “prime” games yesterday).

@Frank the Tank – Your comments are pretty much in line with my thinking. Fox could become something akin to what CBS Sports currently is with the SEC for prime time games. And yes, ABC/ESPN will be in a position where they don’t want to lose the B1G on Saturday afternoons.

So how do you think this all plays out in the 9 v. 10 conference game decision/debate in the B1G? Will they go to ten games because it offers better inventory to the networks and five home/road conference games per year to help competitive balance? Or do they go with nine games in order to keep at least seven at home each season and increase the probability of more interesting home-and-home matchups outside the B1G region?

ESPN’s last B1G blog post yesterday talked about the divisions being shaped by time zones, i.e., geography. See http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/71477/time-zones-might-shape-b1g-divisions The entry had a link to MSU AD Mark Hollis talking about wanting to showcase Michigan State in Chicago, which would indicate a preference for being in the western division. Do you think that’s going to happen or will it be Purdue going to the west with MSU in the east?

The key to the debate of the # of conference games is to “move the bacon” if you will. By moving the default level to 9 games, they basically made it fiat accompli. But you can only do that by making this a debate 9 v 10 rather than 8 v 9.

Thing is, among the Big Ten AD’s are those who would benefit more from the 10 game schedule, so so all that is necessary is to raise the question whether in going to 14 schools and 7 school divisions, they play 8, 9 or 10.

Those lining up for fewer games have no substantial difference in 8 or 9 ~ trading off a second level Home and Home OOC for a conference Home and Home is at worst a wash, possibly an upgrade since conference record is on the line. So put the question of 8, 9 or 10 on the agenda, and it quickly becomes 9v10 on its own.

I was thinking about this when I read the article as well, and I thought the proposed B1GW teams will likely push to keep MSU and Michigan in the same division. This would eliminate protected cross-overs for Michigan and give the western teams more chances to play Michigan. Purdue would have the protected rivalry game with Indiana, so Indiana would have less exposure to the western teams at the expense of more exposure to Purdue. This scenario would still guarantee MSU plays in Chicago once every four years (once per class).

That may be true, but I guess my thinking is that the benefit/demand for more access to Michigan by the B1GW schools would outweight any perceived difference in strength between MSU and Purdue (assuming the decision is between Purdue and MSU going west).

For non-king B1G schools, records/relative strength can vary significantly in a short amount of time. Ten years ago, Purdue would have been considered a stronger football program than MSU, so I’m not sure there’s a strong case to be made for sending MSU west based on competitive balance. Will B1G ADs feel the same way?

“That may be true, but I guess my thinking is that the benefit/demand for more access to Michigan by the B1GW schools would outweight any perceived difference in strength between MSU and Purdue (assuming the decision is between Purdue and MSU going west).”

1. MSU wants to go west and PU doesn’t (as far as I know).
2. MSU is a much better program now than PU.
3. With 9 games, they still get MI twice every 12 years.
4. Less MI also means more OSU and PSU (twice every 6 years instead of every 7, essentially).
5. Net result is 7/9 (0.78) of an eastern king annually versus 6/7 (0.86) if MSU is in the east. That’s 1 less king game every 12 years, roughly.
6. But PSU isn’t MI, you say. Well, they’d only get 1 fewer game against OSU and MI every 10 years.
7. As I showed elsewhere, MSU in the west does provide better balance.
8. MSU in the west also provides better brand balance.

1. MSU wants to go west and PU doesn’t (as far as I know).
>I agree that MSU wants to go west, but I bet PU also wants to go west too, especially if they keep their IU rivalry protected and maintain the ND game (which could buffer losing some eastern king appearances with the IU crossover). Have you seen anyone from PU say they would rather go east? I would expect PU would want to go west for the same reasons MSU does.

2. MSU is a much better program now than PU.
>Delany and B1G PTB have consistently said these are long term decisions, not ones based on the immediate past. MSU has only been significantly better over the last 3-4 years.

3. With 9 games, they still get MI twice every 12 years.
> That’s not a lot. I would bet every B1GW team would rather play Michigan more often.

4. Less MI also means more OSU and PSU (twice every 6 years instead of every 7, essentially).
> As you say below, playing PSU isn’t nearly the same as playing Michigan – not nearly as appealing or lucrative for B1GW teams.

5. Net result is 7/9 (0.78) of an eastern king annually versus 6/7 (0.86) if MSU is in the east. That’s 1 less king game every 12 years, roughly.
> So, not only do B1GW teams play fewer kings, but a higher frequency of PSU and less Michigan? That’s even less appealing for all 6 B1GW teams.

6. But PSU isn’t MI, you say. Well, they’d only get 1 fewer game against OSU and MI every 10 years.
> See above.

7. As I showed elsewhere, MSU in the west does provide better balance.
> I believe you took a sample of win/loss records over a ten year timeframe. If we look at the last fifteen years, we can see PU has made more bowls, and had more Rose Bowl appearances than MSU. I don’t think the two programs are much different strength-wise, especially when taking a longer term view of both teams. I think anyone that says MSU is a significantly better football program than PU is clouded by recency bias.

8. MSU in the west also provides better brand balance.
> I lukewarmly agree with this, but only because of MSU’s basketball success, not because MSU’s perceived strength as a football program. I still think MSU and PU are very close on the Q-score spectrum, but this is meaningless anyway since brand balance is not a criterion the PTB have claimed they will use to select divisions.

MSU going west is better for MSU, but worse for six other schools, and arguably for Purdue as well. Will the B1G PTB cave for MSU if the other six or seven schools express their preference for MSU in the east, especially when MSU going east still gives them games against NU just about once for each class? What if NU agreed to have MSU as a protected rival – that would satisfy MSU’s two top preferences in division realignment without sacrificing the others access to Michigan. I’m not sure NU would go for that, but the point is there are other ways to satisfy MSU’s Chicago love and still keep them east.

That graphic from Scarlet_lutefisk above shows that over the last 30-40 years, there hasn’t been a major difference in conf winning percentage between the two schools. The graphic doesn’t cherry pick years – the “best fit curves” merge around 1975 and are almost the same down to present day.

I *speculate* that Purdue wants to go west for the some of the same reasons MSU does – maintaining active recruiting channels in Chicago (for both students and athletes), and once PSU returns to prominence, having fewer kings in the division to compete with on a yearly basis, especially with ND on their yearly schedule. That’s not unreasonable or necessarily incorrect, and I don’t need to prove anything – I freely admit I’m speculating. Also, NU doesn’t mean any more or less to MSU than it does to PU as you infer in your response – MSU just wants to maintain access to Chicago.

Moving MSU west and instituting a UM/MSU crossover creates an imbalance for B1GW’s access to B1GE schools. Sure, you can backfill gaps created from the UM/MSU crossover w/ OSU and PSU, but I still think B1GW schools would prefer equal access to all B1GE programs rather than more of one and less of another. This is a league that trumpets equality as one of its core strengths. I know that the division format creates an imbalanced schedule by its very nature, but why exacerbate this imbalance for B1GW schools and their access to UM, a very important program for all of the B1GW teams? This would be benefit MSU, but cost six B1GW schools. You can believe those costs are insignificant, I just don’t happen to agree.

Also, it’s not unreasonable to believe B1GW schools accepted PSU, OSU and UM in the same division while requesting that MSU be placed in the east to maintain a more balanced schedule. This is the essence of compromise, not “having it both ways” as you state. It’s not a hypocritical stance to give and take during this process.

I couldn’t care less where Purdue ends up – I have no dog in that fight – and I don’t like Purdue any more than I like MSU. I just think that recency bias skews a lot of people’s opinion of the relative strengths of MSU and PU, and it looks to me like Scarlet’s graphic bears that out.

I’ll split the baby here. I agree with Brian that MSU is a better long- and short-term brand than Purdue. But it’s not so dramatically better that it would tilt the decision, unless the other factors are tied.

We can all enumerate the other factors at play. How the B1G ADs would weigh them is not so clear. The Legends/Leaders split wasn’t very popular; so obviously, the way the ADs think is not always aligned with the way the fans think.

I suspect that the negotiation in the room is a delicate dance. Iowa can say, “We want to play Nebraska every year,” and it is uncontroversial. But access to Chicago is useful to many teams, not just MSU. So if Mark Hollis says, “I’d like to be in the west, so that we can play in Chicago every other year,” 13 other guys might say they want the same thing. If he insinuates that he wants to be in the west because the schedule will be easier, he won’t get a lot of sympathy for that either. ADs have to at least put up a show of thinking on behalf of the whole league.

For the record, Illinois is Purdue’s second most-played rivalry, behind Indiana, and ahead of even Notre Dame, so perhaps they’d want to keep that. Michigan State is Northwestern’s least-often-played Big Ten rivalry (mainly because the Spartans joined the league much later than the other pre-Penn State schools).

So I don’t think there is any particular history to the Michigan State-Northwestern rivalry, other than the Spartans simply wanting it for their own benefit. There’s nothing wrong with a little selfishness, at times, but I doubt it will prevail unless it’s what the ADs already want, for better reasons.

“That graphic from Scarlet_lutefisk above shows that over the last 30-40 years, there hasn’t been a major difference in conf winning percentage between the two schools. The graphic doesn’t cherry pick years – the “best fit curves” merge around 1975 and are almost the same down to present day.”

And the huge gap before that shows why MSU is a bigger brand.

“I *speculate* that Purdue wants to go west for the some of the same reasons MSU does – maintaining active recruiting channels in Chicago (for both students and athletes),”

PU is much closer to Chicago, plus they have a smaller fraction of their alumni in Chicago IIRC. Still, you are welcome to speculate, of course. The difference is that we have evidence that MSU wants to go west.

“and once PSU returns to prominence, having fewer kings in the division to compete with on a yearly basis, especially with ND on their yearly schedule.”

MSU has NEVER said that fear of tougher teams is why they want to go west. That’s also speculation by you, and goes against what some of their fans have said. It also goes against the math which says it wouldn’t make a huge difference.

“Also, NU doesn’t mean any more or less to MSU than it does to PU as you infer in your response – MSU just wants to maintain access to Chicago.”

Show me all the quotes from Burke about playing NW being PU’s second most important game. Hollis has been saying that for years, and Alvarez has said MSU is campaigning to go west. He could have mentioned PU at the same time, but didn’t.

“Moving MSU west and instituting a UM/MSU crossover creates an imbalance for B1GW’s access to B1GE schools.”

No more so than IN/PU being locked would. It just changes the teams involved.

“Sure, you can backfill gaps created from the UM/MSU crossover w/ OSU and PSU, but I still think B1GW schools would prefer equal access to all B1GE programs rather than more of one and less of another.”

1. Equal access is impossible with a locked game. They’ll have equal access to the other 6, though.

2. PSU is not an equal replacement for MI for some schools, but OSU is pretty equivalent team for all but MN. The increase in OSU games would almost equal the loss of MI games.

“This is a league that trumpets equality as one of its core strengths.”

So that means it shouldn’t matter who goes where. Since MSU wants the west, they should get it unless PU is campaigning just as hard for it.

“I know that the division format creates an imbalanced schedule by its very nature, but why exacerbate this imbalance for B1GW schools and their access to UM, a very important program for all of the B1GW teams?”

WI wants to play MSU more according to their fans. IL prefers OSU to MI slightly, so they get what they want. In addition, all these teams seemed to support sending OSU and MI east knowing that this sort of decision would have to be made.

“Also, it’s not unreasonable to believe B1GW schools accepted PSU, OSU and UM in the same division while requesting that MSU be placed in the east to maintain a more balanced schedule.”

It’s not unreasonable, but none of the leaks support it. They’ve said they agree on sending 3 kings east and are debating where MSU and PU go. If it was conditional on MSU also going east, then the western schools wouldn’t have supported the 6/6 split. That’s not the word we’ve been hearing, though.

“This is the essence of compromise, not “having it both ways” as you state.”

It’s compromise if they made it a condition of agreeing to send OSU and MI east. It’s hypocritical to agree to sending them east and then complain about not playing MI enough when there were 50/50 odds of MI/MSU being locked.

“I agree with Brian that MSU is a better long- and short-term brand than Purdue.”

Hah. My plan has worked. I’ve forced you to agree with me on something. The brain washing will now begin.

“But it’s not so dramatically better that it would tilt the decision, unless the other factors are tied.”

I wouldn’t say tied, but close. I agree we’re not talking MI versus IN here.

“So if Mark Hollis says, “I’d like to be in the west, so that we can play in Chicago every other year,” 13 other guys might say they want the same thing.”

I can almost guarantee RU, MD, PSU and OSU wouldn’t make that claim (it certainly wouldn’t be credible), and clearly NW and IL wouldn’t. So at most 7 other guys would say it. Now subtract the obvious western schools (NE, WI, IA, MN) since they’ll clearly get that chance and you’re down to MI, MSU, PU and IN. We know MI is going east with IN, so it becomes just the two. And we know Hollis is saying it but we haven’t heard it from Burke.

“If he insinuates that he wants to be in the west because the schedule will be easier, he won’t get a lot of sympathy for that either.”

Nor should he.

“For the record, Illinois is Purdue’s second most-played rivalry, behind Indiana, and ahead of even Notre Dame, so perhaps they’d want to keep that.”

Yeah, the Purdue cannon has meaning. IL would also like to keep Illibuck. They tend to be the school getting screwed with this setup because they are near the E/W border.

“So I don’t think there is any particular history to the Michigan State-Northwestern rivalry, other than the Spartans simply wanting it for their own benefit. There’s nothing wrong with a little selfishness, at times, but I doubt it will prevail unless it’s what the ADs already want, for better reasons.”

Will they go to ten games because it offers better inventory to the networks and five home/road conference games per year to help competitive balance?

Some of these concerns are more imagined than real. As long as all the teams in a given division have the same number of home/road games, competitive balance is not really an issue.

Moreover, even in the current 8-game structure, most teams play 3 OOC home games, and those are part of the Big Ten inventory anyway, regardless of opponent. Of course, Indiana vs. a BIg Ten team is going to get better ratings than Indiana vs. Ball State or Western Kentucky; but no one forced the Hoosiers to schedule those games; they did that to themselves. And with one less OOC game, what will Indiana drop? Will it drop Ball State (a game it ought to win easily), or will it drop USF (a game it could lose)?

Or do they go with nine games in order to keep at least seven at home each season and increase the probability of more interesting home-and-home matchups outside the B1G region?
Ohio State has said they intend to keep their competitive OOC games, and I believe Michigan will as well. What’s interesting is what the bottom half of the conference will do.

About 90% of me believes that the Big Ten is simply going to 9 conference games, with 10 only being a theoretical discussion point.

The last 10% of me, though, looks at it from the perspective of a school like, well, Illinois. Sure, Ohio State has a nice slate of non-conference games lined up and if Purdue and Michigan State are able to maintain their Notre Dame series long-term (which isn’t necessarily a given since the Irish are giving priority to maintaining the Stanford series above them, much less Navy and USC), then they’ll obviously want to keep those games. For the “masses” of the Big Ten, though, how many non-conference opponents are out there that would be more intriguing (or more bluntly, would sell more tickets) than having more games against Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Nebraska? The vast majority of Big Ten schools don’t really play other marquee non-conference opponents – they’re typically schools that are at about the same level of quality or worse (or have some type of historical tie-in like Purdue-ND or Iowa-Iowa State). Maybe Big Ten ADs are starting to ask themselves about whether there’s any point to going through the headache of non-conference scheduling when the schools that your fans want to see and buy tickets for are located in your very own conference. Once again, a school like Ohio State or Michigan that can sell 100,000-plus seats whether they’re playing a MAC opponent or Notre Dame won’t necessarily think of it from that angle, but I’m sure the Illinois/Indiana/Northwestern/Minnesota-types that have to work to sell tickets (and aren’t as concerned about having a pristine on-the-field record to compete for a national championship) have a different perspective.

I’m of roughly the same mind you are right now concerning the nine v. ten game conference game discussion. I have to think that the athletic directors are going to be a bit conservative here in their thinking and put themselves in a situation where they can more readily schedule seven home game per year, which means nine conference games. It may just be an interim measure at this point to be implemented in 2016 because the conference may have 16 or more members by then.

But with the cost of pay for play non conference opponents going up and given some of the revenue figures that have been tossed around regarding annual conference distributions being buttressed by post-season and television revenue, I could also really see them considering a ten-game conference model as well.

If nothing else changed, a ten-game conference schedule with fourteen total teams could mean a 6-1-3 setup that would accomplish Delany’s stated goal of having the conference teams play one another as much as possible. With this setup, every team would play the other at least twice over a four year period.

I do agree with you that schools do vary in their practices concerning non-conference game scheduling. For some, it’s a path to get enough victories to get to a bowl game. For others, it’s a way to showcase their program on a large stage and to be in the post-season discussion for the BCS or in a few years, the four-team playoff.

One of the takeways I had from some of the articles written about the division split in the Big Ten is that the athletic directors really seem to value having their division opponents within a reasonable driving distance of one another. I suspect their thinking is that if I have to sell tickets for a less than stellar opponent’s game, it makes sense to be more accessible to that other team’s fans so they fill up the seats. That’s one of the reasons why I never thought that inner-outer division alignment wouldn’t work and it’s also one of the reasons why I suspect Northwestern was not interested in going to the east division (per the ChiTrib).

What do you think would be the fallout if the Big Ten was an “early adapter” of a ten-game conference schedule? Would other conferences follow the B1G’s lead (SEC, ACC)? Would it be a clear signal that the B1G intends to expand? Would schools be willing to have alternating seasons of six and seven home games in order to have at least one compelling non-conference game per year or would this kill off major inter-conference play? And if the B1G does have conference games in the first three weeks of September on a regular basis, what does that do to the non-conference schedule? I don’t think programs would be willing to play a major opponent late in the season in the midst of conference play.

What do you think would be the fallout if the Big Ten was an “early adapter” of a ten-game conference schedule? Would other conferences follow the B1G’s lead (SEC, ACC)?

The other conferences would send Jim Delany a thank-you card for making their playoff access easier, and the Big Ten’s harder.

Would it be a clear signal that the B1G intends to expand?

They already signaled that anyway.

Would schools be willing to have alternating seasons of six and seven home games in order to have at least one compelling non-conference game per year or would this kill off major inter-conference play?

I think the lower half of the Big Ten will stop scheduling competitive OOC opponents.

And if the B1G does have conference games in the first three weeks of September on a regular basis, what does that do to the non-conference schedule? I don’t think programs would be willing to play a major opponent late in the season in the midst of conference play.

I think you’re right about this: the marquee OOC matchups will continue to be in September. I don’t think any conference schedules those games after October 1, aside from traditional rivalries and games against independents.

It’s interesting that you say a ten-game Big Ten Conference schedule would make access to the four-team playoff easier for other conferences? Why would that be the case? If B1G teams opted to swap out a difficult non-conference opponent for a difficult conference opponent, it’s really a no change situation. Mind you, we also don’t know the exact parameters the committee will use for choosing these four teams, but being a conference champion and strength of schedule are supposedly part of it.

As far as B1G expansion goes and clear signals, I’d say they’re still a bit murky at this point. Are the ADs saying they could see a larger conference? Absolutely. I even think it will happen as well. But there’s been no definitive statement from Delany that this is absolutely our plan. But the adoption of a ten-game schedule would definitely be another tell about where the conference is going.

I do agree with you that the lower half of the conference will stop scheduling any comparable or major non-conference opponents. Getting into a bowl game is key–just look at what Minnesota just did with their schedule. Also, if the marquee non-conference games are going to be played earlier in the year, then I imagine the early B1G matchups (in the first three weeks of September) aren’t gong to be between the major programs. You”ll see Ohio State-Indiana or Michigan-Minnesota as possibilities more than, say Michigan-Wisconsin or Ohio State-Nebraska.

Assuming Michigan State does go to the west and is Michigan’s protected rival, that means UM would play some combination of three of the following schools in a ten game schedule: Nebraska, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois. If the B1G were to break this up, it’d be Neb-NW-Minn for two years, then Wis-IA-IL for the other two years. Given those options, I could see the Wolverines playing Minnesota or Illinois earlier in the season than Iowa, Northwestern, Nebraska or Wisconsin.

@cutter: It’s interesting that you say a ten-game Big Ten Conference schedule would make access to the four-team playoff easier for other conferences? Why would that be the case? If B1G teams opted to swap out a difficult non-conference opponent for a difficult conference opponent, it’s really a no change situation.

Ohio State says that they intend to play one major OOC opponent every year. I assume Michigan and Nebraska will do the same: they have certainly scheduled the games, out to 2020 and beyond.

If there are ten conference games, that would give the “kings” — the schools more likely to win the conference in most years — eleven games against major-conference opponents. It would also give them six road games at least half the time.

Compare that to the status quo, where these schools seldom play more than nine or ten major-conference opponents (sometimes only eight), and seldom more than five road games (sometimes only four).

I think it’s fairly apparent that this system will more frequently produce a Big Ten champion with multiple losses, who would probably not be ranked in the top four, and would therefore probably not make the playoff.

Jim Delany, of course, was anti-playoff for years, and that the Rose Bowl was his top priority. The idea of a ten-game conference schedule is quite consistent with that, as the B1G’s Rose Bowl deal does not require the conference champion to be a great team; it only requires them to win the conference somehow.

I read Gene Smith’s comments about wanting to have Ohio State continue playing at least one major non-conference opponent per year, so I assume he’d be willing to do that even with a ten-game conference schedule.

But let’s say Frank is right and Michigan State does go to the west. Ohio State is looking at playing Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Purdue and a depleted Penn State in the near future. That’s not exactly Murder’s Row with the onlly real opposition in the division being Michigan.

Let’s make Ohio State’s protected cross divisional game Illinois because of the Illinibuck. So that means OSU would have its other contests with three of the following–Wisconsin, Nebraska, Northwestern, Michigan State, Iowa and Minnesota. By our definitions, one of those teams is a “king” in Nebraska.

So you have a schedule with one king annually (Michigan), one depleted king (Penn State) and and a third king semi-annually (Nebraska). Then you add one major non-conference opponent to that list. On the top end, that’s actually a pretty typical Ohio State schedule. Where the difference is might be the bottom side.

For example, OSU’s 2012 opponents were Miami (Ohio), Central Florida, California (home-and-home) and Alabama-Birmingham. In a ten-game conference schedule for OSU, Cal and one of those three other teams would be on it. The two dropped teams (let’s say UCF and UAB) would have been replaced by some combination of Maryland/Rutgers and/or a team from the west division. I don’t see that as a major strength of schedule upgrade for Ohio State.

You could make the same sort of argument for Michigan or Nebraska, but I think the larger point is that a ten-game conference schedule only gets appreciably more difficult if you add high quality programs to your conference. If Florida State and Notre Dame were #13 and #14 on the list instead of Maryland and Rutgers, then I would agree with your point. The B1G would have six major program “kings” out of 14 instead of the four out of fourteen that we have now.

We’ll see what happens. I think we’re both agreed that if the Big Ten does opt to play conference games during the first three weeks of September, then the major non-conference opponents would only be played in that same time frame. It might be a little tougher to match up a date with a major opponent if there is only one slot available in September. It’s not impossible, but it may be a bit more difficult.

That leaves me with one more thought. One reason why the Big Ten might go to a ten-game conference schedule earlier rather than later is that it allows the athletic directors more time to plan ahead and to get their non-conference games in place. If they go to nine and leave the possibility of ten in the future, It could make their jobs a bit tricky. To be frank, that’s not the most compelling reason to go to ten conference games, but it’s just a thought.

How far out do you think the conference will release its schedules this spring? Will they only go for 2014/5 or will the extend it out a few more years beyond that?

@cutter: If OSU goes from eight home games to six, and they replace UCF/UAB with two Big Ten teams, you don’t think the schedule gets harder? Remember, they’re making a decision that’s going to have a long tail; Penn State won’t be under sanctions forever.

One reason why the Big Ten might go to a ten-game conference schedule earlier rather than later is that it allows the athletic directors more time to plan ahead and to get their non-conference games in place.

All they’d do is pick a date well into the future, and say: “Don’t schedule more than two games past this year.”

@ Frank ~ I reckon the lineup is both ends against the middle, the big stadium schools and those at the very bottom who want three cupcakes to have a better chance a going bowling against the middle, with those who have an annual Home and Home OOC series making the balance likely to tilt to 9 games.

“But with the cost of pay for play non conference opponents going up and given some of the revenue figures that have been tossed around regarding annual conference distributions being buttressed by post-season and television revenue, I could also really see them considering a ten-game conference model as well.”

The big schools still make a huge profit off a home game after paying the other team.

“What do you think would be the fallout if the Big Ten was an “early adapter” of a ten-game conference schedule?”

Everyone else would point and laugh.

“Would other conferences follow the B1G’s lead (SEC, ACC)?”

Of course not. Who rushed to join the P12 at 9 games?

“Would schools be willing to have alternating seasons of six and seven home games in order to have at least one compelling non-conference game per year or would this kill off major inter-conference play?”

I think it would largely kill off good OOC games. Gene Smith says OSU would keep playing them, but I hope the accountants would tell him otherwise. There is talk of the B10 making schools whole for not having a 7th home game (maybe drop gate sharing), but they can’t replace the loss of fan interest from fewer home games.

“And if the B1G does have conference games in the first three weeks of September on a regular basis, what does that do to the non-conference schedule?”

It screws them up. You’ll have to buy the games later in the year, because no AQ coach will accept a road OOC game in November.

2. Conference games are harder than OOC games because the opponent knows your style and your personnel so well. That’s why lesser teams can pull upsets in conference but rarely do OOC.

3. Assume the extra games are against 2 median B10 teams. For 2012, median in the B10 was #32 in Sagarin. That would be #3 in the ACC, #2 in the BE, #6 in the B12 and P12, #9 in the SEC and #1 in all non-AQs. That doesn’t leave many OOC options that are the same or better than 2 median B10 teams. In other words, adding 2 B10 games makes the scheduler harder.

Going to 10 games means more losses. Until they prove otherwise, it’s hard to believe they’ll reward a tougher schedule with 2 more losses, especially when part of the difficulty comes from location rather than opponent. Maybe you get by with 1 more loss, but the B10’s bad reputation won’t help there either. In essence, the B10 will lose more often and miss out on playoff spots because of it. Both of those things will reinforce the B10’s bad reputation, leading to more missed spots.

@cutter – I don’t really know if 10 conference games necessarily impacts TV inventory that much. This is probably more of a “ground game” concern for the schools – the plebeians of the Big Ten might be coming to the conclusion that they’d rather trade 1 or even 2 non-conference games in exchange for playing Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Nebraska more often. As much as we talk about TV revenue here, game day ticket sales are still the driving force behind athletic department finances.

It’s good to see all the comments coming out of the Big Ten that geography is going to be priority #1 in creating the new divisions. My gut feeling is that Michigan State will end up in the West and everyone will have a permanent cross-division rival like they do now. Whether it’s going to actually be true on the field or not, the perception is going to be that the East has the power with Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State (despite the likelihood of PSU being weak compared to the other 2 until the effect of their sanctions have run their course). Putting Michigan State in the West and keeping both Indiana and Purdue in the East mitigates that perception a bit.

@Frank – I could make arguments both ways about where Michigan State is going to end up. I just don’t know what the Big Ten athletic directors will think about the eastern division having Michigan and Ohio State along with a depleted Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue and Indiana. While we acknowledge that PSU has been a historic king, the perception of that program given its well publicized problems and the division itself may be that it’s not as competitive as it should be and that MSU should be in place of PU.

One thing I found looking at Michigan’s past budgets is that annual conference disbursements (which include television revenue) have been a growing piece of the revenue pie relative to all other sources, including ticket sales. If the conference is really looking at disbursements of $43M by 2017, that could well means that most of the budget of the B1G schools is covered by that revenue source and not tickets sold to the general public. That said, I’m sure they’re looking at what having fewer home games would mean to donations, PSLs, etc. as well.

We’ll see what happens. I do think they’ll adapt a nine-game conference schedule for 2016 and publish it with the disclaimer that it’s subject to change. 2014/5 will stick at eight games because of the existing non-conference games already scheduled. And if the conference adds two or four more members, we’ll toss all this out the window. :)

Frank, the idea of putting Michigan St in the West, might create three no votes (Michigan, Michigan State & Minnesota (No annual game vs Michigan)). I hate to admit it, but as far as Penn State is concerned, a number of possible schools in the West do not care if they play my Nittany Lions or not (Guess why Indiana moved their home game to Maryland?), which is quite different than Michigan & Ohio State (Sickening to admit this). You can apply that to Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Michigan State, Minnesota and of course, the Hoosiers, so they will not exactly cry if Penn State is not on their Schedule (Unless it is expressing regret over not having a guaranteed win in basketball). The sad thing is at Penn State we care zero about College Basketball (Sort of like Football at Bloomington, Indiana). How bad is it? A Wrestling match at the Rec Center has better attendance than a hoops game at the Jordan Center, and our attendance in Hockey is far superior as well.

@ Frank: One of the interesting thing is what it will mean for the mid-tier Big East / Mountain West teams. If the B1G is going to play only two non-conference games schools like Purdue will not schedule Cincinnati or Marshall in the future. That’s too big a risk for a loss. They will make sure they play Eastern Michigan or similar directional from the MAC and Eastern Kentucky or some similar 1-AA school. This will starve schools like Cincinnati and Houston from some of the money they need since they are only getting $2,000,000 from their Big East contract. There is virtually no chance that a school like Purdue will ever actually play at Cincinnati or Toledo again. This will put tremendous strain on the budgets of the Big East schools since they have a national footprint and will have insane travel costs wtihout the revenue to support those costs.. Are we on the path to have a more pronounced tier of schools between 1-A and 1-AA whose teams for economic reasons are going to have to organize regionally. Does it make more sense for Cincinnati to be in the MAC with Miami, Toledo and Ohio where they will have the same access to the major bowls that they have in the Big East? Does it make more sense for SMU and Houston to return to a conference with Rice, Tulsa and UTEP for the same reason. You may have national mega-conferences and a return to tier-2 regional conferences. Those conferences won’t have national television deals but they will provide important regional programming.

@Otts: The folks at Cincinnati think they and/or UConn have the next ticket up to the Big Leagues, as soon as the ACC loses two more teams—which everyone expects will happen. Even after the current round of re-alignment, the Big East has a considerably better reputation than the MAC. For a school like Cincinnati, stepping down to the MAC would amount to capitulation. I doubt that the travel costs are onerous enough to justify taking such a huge step down.

Besides that, if you look at Cincinnati’s past and future schedules, they are not hugely dependent on getting games with the Big Ten. At most, it’s one game a year, which they can easily replace in other ways.

“I just don’t know what the Big Ten athletic directors will think about the eastern division having Michigan and Ohio State along with a depleted Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue and Indiana.”

1. The new divisions start in 2014
2. The 9th game starts in 2016 or so (automatically helps with balance)
3. PSU should be near full strength by 2018

PSU won’t be down for long in the new setup. It would be silly to make a major decision like this based on 4 years of PSU down an unknown amount. PSU was better than many thought they’d be this year.

Also, there’s no reason not to expect RU to be a midpack B10 team to start. Much like NW, they aren’t what we all remember them as. Now that they are in a real conference, they might reasonably be expected to improve, too. Purdue should solidify under Hazell. I don’t know where MD will fit in, but they must have bottomed out under Edsall.

“One thing I found looking at Michigan’s past budgets is that annual conference disbursements (which include television revenue) have been a growing piece of the revenue pie relative to all other sources, including ticket sales. If the conference is really looking at disbursements of $43M by 2017, that could well means that most of the budget of the B1G schools is covered by that revenue source and not tickets sold to the general public. That said, I’m sure they’re looking at what having fewer home games would mean to donations, PSLs, etc. as well.”

Yes, TV money is rapidly catching up to ticket sales. It’ll pass it for the smaller school if it hasn’t already, but the big boys should still make more from tickets for a while. OSU should be making $42-50M in ticket sales in the next few years.

“I hate to admit it, but as far as Penn State is concerned, a number of possible schools in the West do not care if they play my Nittany Lions or not (Guess why Indiana moved their home game to Maryland?), which is quite different than Michigan & Ohio State (Sickening to admit this).”

Why is it sickening? Doesn’t PSU prefer to play eastern rivals to IN or MN? Why wouldn’t those feelings go both ways? Don’t you prefer your lifelong friends to new acquaintances?

I think FOX will be VERY interested in getting valuable B1G rights whenever available, to help propel FS1+2 distribution across the board, to create synergies with BTN and to weaken ESPN in order to access some of the money the WWL charges carriers.

When the Pac-12 and Big XII deals were negotiated, FOX’s main need was to create a strong CFB package for their broadcast network (which IMHO they did; actually, add on a few marquee B1G games a year and they would be stronger than ABC especially on Saturday nights).

Plus, FOX didn’t have a national sports net (or two) to sell like they do now. IIRC, B1G is the Conference with more population across its footprint.

Its best for the Olympics to drop a sport done pretty much around the globe in favor of obscure sports? One of the sports from the ancient Greek Olympics? And its a sport that can be done by people of different sizes without access to a lot of money and equipment. Maybe Nike isn’t paying enough sponsorship money.

If you follow wrestling you know that it has been under siege by the IOC for two decades. Beginning with reducing the number of wt classes from 10 to 8, then 7. Insisting on reducing match duration, weight class must be decided in 1 day, qualifiers to limit entrants, and in 2004 the complete alteration of the rules turning it into a hybrid tennis (2 out of 3 rounds regardless of total score), sumo (stepping out of bounds scores same as a takedown or 1 pt exposure),and lottery (scoreless period results in random draw to create wrestling from a position that neither contestant could achieve on their own, and 90% of time draw winner scores from). All this was decided by TV, marketing reps, IOC governance, advertising reps, but no one involved in the sport until they were told to take it, or risk exclusion from the Olympic$.

Should have retained the integrity of the sport and been excluded, rather than unrecognizably bastardize the sport – and get excluded anyway. Backlash in the US may be very muted as many, like me, have stopped following the international styles in anything other than a passing way inspire of being involved with wrestling since 1965.

Big lesson: market your sport. But do not alter the sport in order to market it, certainly not at the dictate of not invested commercial enterprise! You may lose some income, or more, but you retain your soul.

It’s totally a fabricated “competition”. Nothing against the competitors or coaches, they are just playing the cards they were dealt. But when you can win a match without scoring (and the opponent has)? Or win a round in spite of trailing? Best thing for wrestling may be to get away from the IOC and rebuild as an actual competitive sport. I’ve advocated that since they began reducing the number of wt classes.

I’ve been advocating for a while now that the Summer Olympics (which are now gigantic) should be split in to a Summer Olympics and Indoor Olympics. The Indoor Olympics would actually have some of the most popular sports (gymnastics & swimming as well as wrestling, boxing, basketball, & volleyball) while the Summer Olympics would feature sports that take place outdoors (track is the big one). Baseball can be brought back as well.

The Olympics would take place every 1 to 1.5 years (exciting sponsors) but the 4 year cycle would remain for all sports.

There are a ton of reasons to do this: Besides allowing more sports, it would allow the Summer Olympics to always take place in the same part of the year (NBC would much prefer always July/August, after the NBA and NHL end but before football starts), yet southern hemisphere countries like Australia could still host the Indoor Olympics in what for them is the dead of winter.

Or four ~ the team olympics, for sports with teams of more than four people, indoor, outdoor summer, outdoor winter.

But it could go a way in that direction if they moved some gymnasium sports to winter. Which ones would move would be drive, of course, by ratings. Gymnastics would stay in summer, but if they decided that the rating for wrestling and proper volleyball didn’t draw the ratings for the Summer Olympics, move it to the Winter Olympics.

Going to 3 Olympics sounds fine, although you shouldn’t separate between ‘indoor’ and ‘outdoor’. Call them ‘Alpha Olympics’ and ‘Omega Olympics’, or whatever.

The reason the IOC tries to cut sports when it adds new ones is it wants to keep the costs from growing too much larger for host cities. Oftentimes the cities have problems finding uses for all the facilities they build for summer games, leading to little used facilities that cost a lot to build and then cost a lot to maintain.

So you’d want to split the outdoor and indoor summer events between the 2 Summer Olympics; every large city can use some outdoor stadia and indoor arenas . Afterwards, some of those can be re-purposed to appropriate venues if necessary. If a Berlin Olympics hosts a summer Olympics that has baseball but not soccer, that baseball park can be built to be re-shaped into a soccer stadium after the Olympics.

Shifting events between summer and winter Olympics is also a good idea. I know the NHL hates having Olympic hockey in the middle of their season, so that can move to one of the Summer events even as some summer events go to the Winter games.

As you all know, I have commented many times about the street fight going on between FOX and ESPIN. I had not yet processed the reports that FOX approached the C7 before they split off. And now add the “news” (to me) that the Big East “inventory” was ESpin “inventory”, it is clear that this was a very nimble move by FOX. FOX picked up 2 CFB and 10-12 Bball “properties” and denied these to ESpin.

And the fact that FOX is “overpaying” seems, IMO, yet more proof that the networks and conferences are playing long-term strategies here. They are spending $$ now to accomplish 20-year goals. ESpin spent a lot of $$ on the LHN to keep the BXII intact and keep some of that “inventory” with ESpin; FOX spent $$ to hasten the end of the Big East and get some Bball inventory to enhance the long-term viability of FoxSports 1 and 2 and to diminish the value of other Big East “properties” “owned” by ESpin; the B1G may go to 10 conference games and take less $$ short-term to accomplish longer-term goals of conference cohesion.

I think it is also worth noting the zero-sum nature of CFB and Bball from the networks’ collective perspectives. As FOX grows, it grows at the expense of ESpin. This last move took 12-14 “properties” from Espin. There are only a finite number of “properties.”

By contrast, this also shows (again) the brilliance of Delany and the BTN. The BTN is not playing a zero-sum strategy. They are trying to expand the “pie” by finding cable-tv “value” in what ESpin can’t/doesn’t want to broadcast (that is, the “body bag” football games, olympic sports, hockey, lax. etc.). And slowly, that additive strategy is working.

Frank, my only criticism is the photo. This is NOT conspiracy theory and tin-foil hat terrain. This is straight-forward hard-nosed business. To the networks, teams are “properties” and “inventory” and the goal is to get as many “properties” under contract as you can and to deny as many as possible to the opposition. I don’t think there is any question the networks are influencing and manipulating conference realignment/consolidation.

Delany understands. Proof is the B1G’s no-apologies in-the-dark-of-night hostile take-over of cash-strapped Maryland. This not conspiracy theory; this is what the networks and the powers conferences are DOING.

You might note that it was Fox, not ESPN, that saved the Big 12. ESPN promised not to cut the contract. Fox delivered a new contract 450% higher than the old one. ESPN’s LHN deal was a little further down the road. That deal wasn’t until January 2011.

Because even though Fox has part of the Pac-12 deal, a Pac-16 with Texas/OU is far more expensive per team.

It’s in the interests of both Fox and ESPN to keep Texas/OU separate from the Pac-12 because they already pay for both conferences. They don’t want to pay another level of magnitude more for those 16 teams.

And Fox has regional deals with plenty of the Big 12 teams for Tier 3 rights that helps fill their regional sports programming.

And in Basketbal Mizzou has been significantly better than Texas for a while now.

In baseball Mizzou won the series with Texas last year and won the Big 12 title.

So I’m not sure what sport that would be true in. Not Softball, Mizzou has been above Texas there for a few years. Women’s soccer has been pretty even. Maybe tennis? Track and field? And this is considering UT’s budget is twice the size of Mizzou’s.

He’s talking about measurements like the Director’s Cup. Its been a bad couple of years by Texas standards overall. Baseball had its worse year in a long time last year. Basketball has struggled the last couple of years. Football hasn’t done great. We haven’t won the swim title since 2010. Some of the spring sports haven’t done as well as usual. UT finished 15th in 2010 in the Director’s Cup, 12th in 2011 and 6th in 2012. The 8 years prior to that were more typical-2nd, 2nd, 10th, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 5th, 6th. 2001 when they were #19 was the last previous year UT wasn’t top 10. If you did a cumulative Director’s Cup over the last 20 years, UT would probably be either 2nd or 3rd (Stanford #1, UT or UCLA most likely #2).

So there are a lot of complaints about the relative lack of success, particularly in the high profile sports. He’s defending it by saying a bad year by Texas standards is a good year for a lot of schools. And since Missouri cost him money, that’s probably why he chose Missouri to take a shot at.

Delany points out that different Big Ten programs have different goals, whether it’s competing for national championships or making bowl games on a regular basis. But the message from the league office to its members is to push themselves more in non-league scheduling.

“What we’ve got to do is upgrade,” Delany said. “It doesn’t make any sense to be playing people from different divisions with fewer scholarships [FCS]. It doesn’t make sense for everyone to be playing Southern Cal and Texas, but there’s comparability there that we could seek out. We’re trying to find out ways that we can create fair schedules, good schedules, healthy schedules for our teams, our players, our coaches and our fans.”

END OF EXCERPT

Cutter’s Comment: It sounds like Delany wants the B1G teams to upgrade the inventory of non-conference games and drop the Division 1-AA opponents (FCS). While that may not effect the major programs in the conference, it will definitely touch on a number of the others.

Delany has been saying that same thing for years. You’ll notice how little impact it has had. He can’t force them to change, and many schools view their priorities as more important than upping the TV deal another $1M.

I’ve advocated on this blog that each of the major conferences, while negotiating with the networks promise:

1) no FCS games
2) 10 games a year against major conference opponents (with 9 conference games, every school would need 1 ‘major’ OOC game), with 1/2 of them at home (or a neutral game that they maintain the TV rights for).

This would make the TV packages more valuable, so the networks would bid more (offsetting the losses). An individual school that failed to meet the scheduling requirements (unless a truly last minute happening made it impossible) would forfeit a percentage of TV money back to the networks.

The SEC’s dominance in CFB will not end until the oversigning problem is solved. Either the SEC (West) has to stop or the B1G has to start. And this is a competitive advantage for the SEC (West). Every school experiences attrition between NLOI day and the August “deadline” for being at 85. For B1G schools, any attrition means the school is under the 85 limit. For the SEC (West), attrition just gets them to the full strength at 85. ‘Bama oversigned by 6 to 10 players a couple of weeks back. Saban’s 2013 March to 85 started off with a BANG with four players arrested for robbery. Sad that happened, but will have no impact on ‘Bama’s ability to win.

My point is that the # of cupcakes and bodybag games is trivial compare to other factors that will lead the SEC to multiple bids in the playoffs.

Where do you get that Bama oversigned by 6 to 10 players this past signing period? Bama signed a total of 26 kids, with several of those backcounting against last year’s class. The SEC schools can no longer sign more than 25 kids against a class. Now they can only “oversign” if they undersigned the previous year.

And btw, UF signed 29 kids and UGA signed 32 kids in this class. So the “SEC (West)” being the only SEC schools that “oversign” insinuation that goes around on this blog gets a little old.

Hypothetical example:
Say AL had 85 people on scholarship last year with no walk-ons among those 85. Now say 20 players graduate/go pro/quit/transfer by February 1. AL can legally sign 25 recruits, but they only have 20 spots open. That would be oversigning by 5 if they signed 25 recruits.

The reason the SEC west gets that reputation is because they earned it.

Just for the heck of it ,I went back and checked the number of 5 stars on the major rating services from OH. There was a total for all 4 was 1. On scouts Ohio State had 4 (5 stars) but only 1 was from Ohio ,the other 3 were not from Ohio and were not rated 5s by the other services. Quite simply something smells. Southern and Texas bias ?

“On scouts Ohio State had 4 (5 stars) but only 1 was from Ohio ,the other 3 were not from Ohio and were not rated 5s by the other services. Quite simply something smells. Southern and Texas bias?”

The only thing that smells is Scout’s ratings. Their ratings as a whole are usually not as close to the other 3 major recruiting sites (Rivals, 247 Sports, & ESPN) as the other 3 are to each other. I’ve gotten to where I use 247’s composite rankings to get a better feel for the actual classes since it uses all 4 of the major sites rankings in their composite formula, not just their own.

Simply saying ‘X school signs more in an average class’, without examining things further, is not much of a charge. Any school that gets a higher percentage of its players for less than 5 years (4 years playing + 1 redshirt year) is going to need to sign more players:

-A school that recruits more Juco players will need to sign more each year (they start with less eligibility)
-A school that uses less redshirts will need to sign more each year (they’ll be out 1 year sooner)
-A school that has more people leaving early for the NFL will need to sign more each year (oftentimes the same players who are in the previous category)
-A school that takes a chance on more marginal students will need to sign more, as more of these will not qualify or drop out. (unlike others, I don’t think it’s an immoral act to take a chance on such students)

-A school that takes more transfers from other schools will need to sign less, as transfers don’t count as recruits.

There’s a lot of SEC schools that meet more of first four categories than a given Big Ten school, and that’s not sinister.

I know a lot of you are going to say ‘blah blah Houston Nutt’, but not everyone who signs more players than Northwestern is Houston Nutt.

“Simply saying ‘X school signs more in an average class’, without examining things further, is not much of a charge.”

Like any stat, it’s can only tell part of the story, sure. But it is a quick way to show that one small group of schools is very different from the others. It’s different from the SEC East and every other major conference.

“-A school that recruits more Juco players will need to sign more each year (they start with less eligibility)”

No credible school should have a large number of JUCO players, especially ones they sent to a diploma mill out of high school.

“-A school that uses less redshirts will need to sign more each year (they’ll be out 1 year sooner)
-A school that has more people leaving early for the NFL will need to sign more each year (oftentimes the same players who are in the previous category)”

No other kings came close to AL’s numbers, IIRC.

“-A school that takes a chance on more marginal students will need to sign more, as more of these will not qualify or drop out.”

This is a good point, and invites two responses.

1. The recruiting services should do a better job of redoing their rankings in August to show only the players that actually made it to the team and stressing that those are the real rankings. That helps the SEC by not counting all the players they signed knowing they couldn’t make it and had to place in a JUCO, so it looks less like they are running off tons of players. It also helps everyone else by making it a more level playing field for comparing classes for all the schools that recruit by the spirit of the rules.

2. Why is any self-respecting major university accepting people that can barely graduate from high school and can’t even match the incredibly low standards the NCAA has to qualify?

“(unlike others, I don’t think it’s an immoral act to take a chance on such students)”

Oh, please. They aren’t “taking a chance on them.” They’re hoping that between cherry-picking easy classes and majors and having a stable of tutors doing all their work for them, they can keep them eligible with a 2.0 long enough to help them win some games. Taking a chance would be if there was some cost to them if it didn’t work out and they actually cared if the players succeed in life.

“-A school that takes more transfers from other schools will need to sign less, as transfers don’t count as recruits.”

Do you really think that’s why AL took 55 more players than OSU over 9 years?

“I know a lot of you are going to say ‘blah blah Houston Nutt’, but not everyone who signs more players than Northwestern is Houston Nutt.”

No, but there is quite a bit of room between signing 37 and the 19/year of NW.

It’s important to point out that these numbers predate the recent recruiting rule changes and now the four year scholarship (for those that give them). The numbers gap should shrink.

The Big Ten is considering 9 versus 10 right now but the 10 game schedules are likely to be in conjunction with expansion to 16 or 18.

I am also of the opinion that the Big Ten’s interest in JHU is very real (and not just because I’ve spent 4 years convincing myself that it’d be a brilliant move). The lure to bring them into the CIC as well as set up an elite lacrosse league is a valuable opportunity that shouldn’t be passed up if it is possible to pull it off.

I have no idea if Johns Hopkins would go to the Big 10, but it certainly would make some of the Lacrosse playing Schools in the ACC (Such as North Carolina) look long and hard at the Big 10 if they ever decided to leave the ACC and choose between the SEC and Big 10. Keep in mind the SEC does not have a lot of Schools playing Lacrosse (Florida I know is one), while the Big 10 is on the rise. To be fair, the SEC has a great baseball Conference (Particularly LSU, Florida & Georgia), and the Big 10 is awful at it, so that becomes a wash. Obviously the SEC is best in football, but not so hot in hoops (Except Florida & Kentucky), the Big 10 is the exact opposite (Only Ohio State Football is great. (Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska (And when sanctions end) Penn State can be). But if you look at Academics and Research $$$$$ it is not close. Big 10 all the way, and Hopkins would simply make that disparity even greater.

This dynamic is very similar to the one that played out with the Big 12 that led to Nebraska and Colorado leaving, right?

Regardless of what takes place with the exit fee lawsuit, ESPN could come in and sweeten its offer to the ACC to hold it together which is what ultimately happened with the Big12 before the second round of departures (Mizzou and aTm).

A big chunk of the league could depart leaving the rest of the conference in big trouble, similar the much discussed Texas/Oklahoma schools leaving for the Pac12. This could play out with either a package of old school ACC members departing for the B1G, or a package of ACC schools with the right 3rd tier assets leaving for the Big 12.

Or it could end up a slow leak, does ESPN care that much if UVA and GT were to leave and head to the B1G? Would it raise an eyebrow if NCState and Virginia Tech decided to head to the SEC?

IMHO, ESPN probably is primarily focused on keeping access to ND, FSU, Miami, Clemson and then holding onto UNC/Duke for the winter months.

The Big XII similarity breaks down in a few ways. In the Big XII, Texas and Oklahoma are the football kings, and they also run the conference: if those two schools are in agreement, they get what they want, every time. So the dynamic in the Big XII was very simple: if they stay, you’ve got a league; if they leave, you don’t. To put it differently: anywhere that Texas and Oklahoma want to be, you can always assemble a league around them, no matter who else may stay or go.

In much the same way that Texas and Oklahoma run the Big XII, the North Carolina schools run the ACC. But the North Carolina schools are football weaklings: they have just one league title between them in the last 20 years (Wake Forest, 2006). The schools who keep winning the league are relative newcomers, who do not have long-term emotional ties to the ACC.

That would certainly be consistent with a lot of thinking on this board concerning the addition of Johns Hopkins for lacrosse in concert with further expansion to 18 members.

I actually feel that Florida State might not be such an outlier as he believes. Yes, it is a non-AAU school, but given its location and the status of its football program, it’d be a valuable add to the conference in terms of what it could do for the athletic departments’ bottom lines.

He’s right about the Big Ten being in a position to sell a very compelling package to any school it may opt to invite into the conference. I’ve also heard that Virginia and Georgia Tech would be the next likely pair to join the conference once the ACC/Maryland lawsuit is completed, so that’s consistent as well.

In the remarks section, he does admit that have three 6-team divisions isn’t workable per the NCAA regulations. With a ten game schedule and 18 schools in fixed divisions, it’d be a 8-2 setup and it’d take ten years to play every team in the other division twice in a home-and-home setup.

With two 5-team pods and two 4-team pods swapping out every two years, it’d take six season to play every other team twice in a home-and-home setup. If UVa, Duke, UNC and Ga Tech join the current lineup, then the pods could be like this:

I tend to agree that FSU has a much better shot than he gives them credit for. But overall, I consider him a very sober-minded source, and well worth reading.

I’ve said this before: pods suck. In your proposed alignment, half the time Michigan, MSU, OSU, PSU, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin would be in the same division. If you were a Big Ten AD, you’d be laughed out of the room if you proposed that.

The scheduling format won’t ever be perfect, but it can’t be that imperfect.

It’s a tough combination of programs to work with because you want to keep the inter-state rivalries in place while keeping the pods regional. That lineup above does that, but as you mention there would be a perceived competitive imbalance between the divisions half the time if the status quo remained in place.

As far as athletic directors laughing are concerned, if the television networks are writing big checks with this lineup, those ADs will be laughing as they deposit them in the bank. But ideally, you’d like to split up the major programs into different pods. A possible swap could have Penn State in Pod D with Maryland in Pod C to balance it out a bit more, but then you lose the annual OSU-PSU game. It’s all trade offs at this point.

When you do these types of exercises, you realize why a program like Florida State or Notre Dame would be attractive additions to the Big Ten outside of the dollars and cents. At the minimum, adding those two schools would make for perhaps a better pod system:

This set up keeps much of the regionalism intact, but also loses some of the instate rivalries. OTOH, it also splits up the major programs 1-2-2-1 among the four pods and you can’t do much better that that. Two-thirds of the time, the major programs would be split within the divisions 3-3. With nine conference games on the schedule, that leaves three non-conference games for each team to schedule as they see fit.

Of course, if Notre Dame wants to remain a hold out and a program Pittsburgh takes their place, then you could do something like this:

When Delany talked about having nine or even ten conference games per year, he said that the teams in the conference want to play one another more often than not. If that holds as the conference expands, then a pod system is the best way to accomplish that objective while trying to hold onto the more important/rivalry games each year.

As far as athletic directors laughing are concerned, if the television networks are writing big checks with this lineup, those ADs will be laughing as they deposit them in the bank.

The trouble is, I don’t think your lineup achieves that. It’s not in the Big Ten’s competitive interest (and therefore, in its TV interest) to have waaaaaay imbalanced divisions half the time. We can’t predict future performance, but your proposed alignment is so far unbalanced that it wouldn’t be a close call.

I agree that if the Big Ten lands FSU and Notre Dame, a pod structure becomes at least possible. Your proposed structure (with FSU and ND included) would work, with just one extra rule: in the years when Illinois and Northwestern aren’t in the same division, then they play each other as a protected crossover; likewise, Indiana and Purdue. (This assumes 10 conference games.)

Otherwise, your structure protects every rivalry that I believe the conference would regard as essential (i.e., no way in hell they’d sacrifice it). One could argue at the margins about exactly which rivalries are essential, but I don’t think they would ever sacrifice the in-states, UM-OSU, or WI-MN.

As I indicated two or three FTT posts ago, I do think there are far better ways.

Simplistically, if the NCAA didn’t require divisions, you would schedule the way the Big Ten did before Nebraska joined: protect whatever 2 or 3 games each team requires, and then put together a full slate among the remaining games, whatever way you want. At the end of the season, the top two face off in a CCG.

This has the advantage of protecting ONLY those games you really need to protect. In your structure, you fail to protect some games that the teams really want, and you protect others that nobody wants.

If the NCAA refuses to change the rule, then you just create two arbitrary divisions every year, with an algorithm that protects the minimum rivalries that you care about, and otherwise just arranges the teams into fictitious one-year divisions using whatever algorithm you choose (I could easily come up with several).

You can’t say that’s too complicated, because no sport other than football fixes its schedule more than a year in advance; and before Nebraska joined no school was guaranteed more than two protected games.

“In the remarks section, he does admit that have three 6-team divisions isn’t workable per the NCAA regulations. With a ten game schedule and 18 schools in fixed divisions, it’d be a 8-2 setup and it’d take ten years to play every team in the other division twice in a home-and-home setup.

That’s horrible. The B10 minus OSU and MI and PSU but with NE versus the ACC. That sucks for everyone.

“With two 5-team pods and two 4-team pods swapping out every two years, it’d take six season to play every other team twice in a home-and-home setup. If UVa, Duke, UNC and Ga Tech join the current lineup, then the pods could be like this:

Lock OSU/MI, MSU/GT and PU/IN. Rotate C1 and C2 every two years. W and E play 2 rotating games against the other (no home and homes), so they get everyone in 3 years. C1 and C2 play alternating home and homes against the two teams they aren’t locked with. That gives decent balance and exposure to everyone while keeping the rivalries alive.

Probably, yes, but the E needs a power for balance and PSU should be with RU and MD. Besides, GT would still play the ACC teams half the time, plus GT never had strong FB rivalries with UNC, Duke and MD. In exchange, they get OSU and PU (enginerd battle) annually and the rest of the B10 teams 1/3 of the time.

GT definitely gets the short end of this alignment, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not that bad. Their biggest rivals are UGA, Auburn and Clemson, none of which are options.

GT isn’t driving anywhere, first of all. Second, being in the east wouldn’t save that much travel for them. This distance and the lack of strong ACC rivalries are why I pulled GT into the central group.

It’s interesting that you criticize the NE v. ACC lineup since that’s what the Inside-Outside division alignment would have done on an annual basis–and that was one your were advocating earlier when there were discussions surrounding what a 14-team B1G would look like.

The problem with the 2 pods of 6/2 pods of 3 setup is the same one we have now with the Legends and Leaders–a possible rematch in a conference championship game one week after the Michigan-Ohio State game. Unless you’re willing to move the date of the game, your lineup would go against what the UM and OSU ADs have recently said about the upcoming alignment scenario..

While I appreciate the “balance” argument, you’re thinking like the French General Staff again by assuming these football programs are going to remain static vis-a-vis their relative strengths through the seasons this plan is adapted. Do you know how the new teams admitted to the B1G are going to be like in the future now that they have greater resources and play in a better football conference?

I actually do like the 2 pods of 6/2 pods of 3 arrangement for all the reasons you describe except the one above, so here’s my modification to solve the problem mentioned above:

With a ten-game conference schedule, they could get through everyone in three years with no home and homes or six years with home and homes. Is it a tough road to hoe for Michigan, Ohio State and Nebraska? Sure, but OSU played UM, UW and UN-L this season and went undefeated while Nebraska did the same thing and got to the Big Ten Championship Game (where they got blasted by Wisconsin in the rematch).

Besides, television would love having Nebraska, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio State playing one another each year along with Penn State playing one or two of those teams as well. As a Michigan fan, I’m game. How about you?

@cutter: Why the obsession with static 4- and 5-team pods? They are totally unnecessary. They solve no problem, while introducing many others. Every permutation you’ve suggested has issues that are easily avoided with one answer: no pods.

While I appreciate the “balance” argument, you’re thinking like the French General Staff again by assuming these football programs are going to remain static vis-a-vis their relative strengths through the seasons this plan is adapted. Do you know how the new teams admitted to the B1G are going to be like in the future now that they have greater resources and play in a better football conference?

There is overwhelming evidence that college football programs tend to revert to their historical averages. Michigan may have a few bad years, but it returns to strength. Illinois may have a few great years, but it returns to mediocrity.

Now, across a 14-team Big Ten, there will probably be one or two surprising teams. But you can’t put Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin in the same division, and then say, “We have no idea how well they’ll do.” The odds of that many teams defying their historical average are vanishingly small.

The reason why the WAC used the pod-system and why the Big Ten might do it if the conference goes to 16 teams or better was stated quite plainly by Jim Delany when he talked about the conference adopted 9 or 10 conference games. Simply put, he wants to see the B1G teams play one another as much as possible. That same sentiment was echoed by UM AD David Brandon as well.

Once you get to 16 teams and decided on static divisions, there are two options:

1. A 9-game schedule with a 7-2 split. In a home-and-home arrangement for games with teams in the opposite division, it takes eight years to get through them. If the B1G went away from the home-and-home, then each team could play the other at least one time in a four year period.

2. A 10-game schedule with a 7-3 split. The same as above, except we’re talking six years for the home and homes in an opposite division.

A pod system with sixteen teams in a 4X4 setup and a nine-game schedule has each team playing the other at least twice in a home and home setup. Problem solved.

Are you seriously suggesting that an 18- or 20-team B1G have fixed divisions? We’re talking about 8-1 or 8-2 splits for the former and 9-0 and 9-1 splits for the latter. Now if you think at that point the conference should act as two mini-conferences (Big Ten East, Big Ten West) administered by one entity. than I’d happily endorse that.

Why can’t you put Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State, Michigan State and Wisconsin in one division? I actually expect all of them to be excellent to good per their historic norms, so why not showcase those teams? If those programs can’t run that gauntlet, do they really belong in the national championship discussion or in a four-team playoff? If strength of schedule is one of the criteria for the playoff, what’s the objection here?

The SEC manages to have a number of high profile games within and between division teams and they’ll have more of them when they adopt nine conference games. The SEC East has Florida, Georgia,Tennessee, Missouri (admittedly a down year for them) and South Carolina. The SEC West has Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas, LSU and Texas A&M. It hasn’t slowed them down vis-a-vis national titles.

No, I’ll stick to my guns on this. The networks would like that lineup. The fans who pay for PSLs and tickets and luxury boxes deserve a good line up of home games for their money–especially with one less every other season. In my original lineup, teams would play all the ones in their region as well–also a plus for the fans.

@cutter: You misunderstand me. I am not advocating static divisions in a 16-20 team Big Ten. I am advocating no divisions or pods whatsoever. Protect only those rivalries that you care about — no more, and no fewer — and write whatever schedule you want, as the Big Ten did before Nebraska joined.

You can either stage a CCG between the top teams, or create artificial divisions to remain within the literal wording of the rule. You can always put Michigan and OSU in the same division, if you want. I could come up with a dozen ways of doing it, without pods.

Your proposed system, based on the WAC system, changes the divisions every couple of years, but it’s hampered by artificial pods that have no actual value: Purdue doesn’t want to play Maryland every year, so don’t make them, just because static pods force you into it. You don’t need the pods. They’re a crutch that just makes the result worse.

Why can’t you put Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State, Michigan State and Wisconsin in one division? I actually expect all of them to be excellent to good per their historic norms, so why not showcase those teams?

You’re borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. By creating one super-division, you’re also creating a lousy one. You’re not adding value, just re-arranging the value that already exists. Where it breaks down is in the CCG, where you’re liable to have an underwhelming match-up.

“It’s interesting that you criticize the NE v. ACC lineup since that’s what the Inside-Outside division alignment would have done on an annual basis”

Nebraska versus the ACC? New England versus the ACC? What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

As for Inner/Outer, you’re talking apples and oranges. Your plan involves 6 new teams, all medium to light weights in football, all in one division. There is no balance, and whichever B10 teams get stuck in the division with all the newbies get screwed. Inner/Outer had only 2 new teams and had a balance of power with OSU, MI and MSU versus NE, PSU and WI.

“and that was one your were advocating earlier when there were discussions surrounding what a 14-team B1G would look like.”

You seem to conveniently forget that I advocated that only if the B10 stuck to 8 games. It wouldn’t require locked crossovers. That was the basis for my supporting it. I didn’t give it universal support.

“The problem with the 2 pods of 6/2 pods of 3 setup is the same one we have now with the Legends and Leaders–a possible rematch in a conference championship game one week after the Michigan-Ohio State game. Unless you’re willing to move the date of the game, your lineup would go against what the UM and OSU ADs have recently said about the upcoming alignment scenario.”

First, it’s an artificial problem. It’s never happened yet so we have no way to know what it would be like. OSU/MI on Saturday night is not UCLA/Stanford during rush hour on Friday. Second, they’ve said they’d do what is best for the conference in terms of divisions. Third, you can split the middle 6 in multiple ways as I showed elsewhere. OSU and MI could be together with MSU and PSU in the other group (OSU/MI/IN vs PSU/MSU/PU, for example).

“While I appreciate the “balance” argument, you’re thinking like the French General Staff again”

Making you the Nazis? Heil cutter! You might want a different analogy.

” by assuming these football programs are going to remain static vis-a-vis their relative strengths through the seasons this plan is adapted.”

You’re the one making assumptions. Did I ever say that’s what would happen?

“Do you know how the new teams admitted to the B1G are going to be like in the future now that they have greater resources and play in a better football conference?”

Yes. I know all.

“I actually do like the 2 pods of 6/2 pods of 3 arrangement for all the reasons you describe except the one above, so here’s my modification to solve the problem mentioned above:

Comcast buying out GE is good news. I wonder if they will do the Country a favor and get rid of MSNBC, and all of the awful shows on NBC and the bad films at Universal (I admit I liked “The Fast & the Furious” series. (Of course, Jordana Brewster, Eva Mendes, guns and muscle cars are my thing)) Basically, I cannot watch that Network with the exception of Football, Hockey & Golf.

Well, if the Big Ten Conference is seriously discussing Florida State as an invitee, then the conference is likely going from 14 to 18 pretty quickly. There might be some scenario for FSU to come in with Georgia Tech, but that would leave Virginia hanging in the wind unless there was a commitment in place for one of the Carolina schools (preferably UNC).

So which one do you invite as #4 if Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia Tech are lined up? Duke or Florida State?

With those givens, Florida State in a heartbeat. At least, that’s my opinion as a fan and businessman. Duke would no doubt have some pull with the academics who actually get to make the decision. Duke is terrible in football, but their basketball program is one of the best brands in all of sports. Academically, they run rings around FSU, and most of the Big Ten.

The reality is, if you have got any four of those five to leave the ACC, the fifth would almost certainly accept a Big Ten invite. The only question, then, is whether you go to 20 right away (and if so, with whom), or do you hang out for the ideal 20th member.

With those 5 to make 19, you’d have to think Delany would wait for a call from South Bend. If that doesn’t come, he has to choose from Miami, VT, NCSU, UConn, Syracuse or BC. None of those are exciting, but all have some positives. You can’t stay at 19 long term unless you don’t need divisions.

Once you’ve added FSU and FL (and well as 3 other states and 4 extra AAU schools), it may make sense to add a school who is a perfect fit in every way but doesn’t bring any extra TV sets in order to get a member like Michigan (which would find Pitt agreeable and wants to play schools who are close by) to vote for the package.

Yes, Miami has a bandwagon fanbase that only shows up for big games. But south FL is full of B10 alumni that will happily go to the games. And Miami fans might be more interested in MI, OSU, PSU and NE than many of the ACC teams. Besides, Miami is a large TV market with plenty of CFB fans.

Brian – in an earlier discussion about all the B1G alums in the ATL that would prop up GA Tech, I asked you if you would buy season tickets to GA Tech. I seem to remember you saying “no.” Assuming most B1G fans are like you, I fail to see the value when Atlanta and Miami may be “full of B10 alums” but will only attend a GA Tech or Miami game when they play your team. Also, like ATL, the vast majority of cable subscribers are not B1G fans. Asking non-B1G fans to pay for the BTN on expanded basic is probably a non-starter as well.

I’m not so sure that Miami even has “plenty of CFB fans.” My impression has always been that Miami is a Dolphin town, and then a bandwagon town, whether it be the Heat or Hurricanes. The bandwagon never seemed to jump on the Marlins, even when they were good. Maybe with a combination the new stadium and a competitive team, the band wagoners may show up. I have now knowledge of the NHL Panthers.

“Brian – in an earlier discussion about all the B1G alums in the ATL that would prop up GA Tech, I asked you if you would buy season tickets to GA Tech. I seem to remember you saying “no.” Assuming most B1G fans are like you,”

That would be a terrible assumption. It’s just too much money to me, but others may feel otherwise. I wouldn’t buy season tickets for OSU even if I lived in Columbus due to the prices, either. Clearly tens of thousands of people disagree with me on that.

“That would be a terrible assumption. It’s just too much money to me, but others may feel otherwise. I wouldn’t buy season tickets for OSU even if I lived in Columbus due to the prices, either. Clearly tens of thousands of people disagree with me on that.”

This discussion is interesting. I have a friend who grew up as a Nebraska fan and is an Illinois alumnus. He just moved to Alpharetta, Georgia (Atlanta suburb) and would be ecstatic if Georgia Tech joined the Big Ten so that he could see his two favorite teams play in person less than an hour away from his home.

I don’t believe the presidents think about it that way. In the hypothetical case where MIT joins for rowing, it doesn’t make BC more acceptable than they were before. (MIT doesn’t compete in Division I rowing, so the idea is way, way out there — far more than Johns Hopkins for lacrosse.)

Yes, this was my reaction to the idea that the Big Ten is looking at expanding with UVA, FSU and John Hopkins Lacrosse, with the academic appeal of UVA and JHU overcoming the resistance to FSU ~ there’s no obvious reason why that would be a three school package deal, so the obvious response would be to accept JHU for Lacrosse and invite them as a guest member of the CIC, and then move on to the UVA and FSU proposal.

1. The BE president and all but 4 of the schools approved the ESPN bid three years ago. They didn’t have the required majority (11 to 4). The 4 schools that voted against the offer all left. So, it’s not really accurate to say the rejection of the deal was myopic.

2. I’d like to see how the deals shake out when all is said and done, because we still don’t know what anyone is going to make. But assuming the numbers are correct, you can’t compare these because you are essentially comparing apples to oranges. Who owns tier 2 and tier 3 for the BE? Does Fox own all the rights of the C7? Don’t imagine that this is an insignificant question for the likes of UConn. It earns $24.75 million a year in broadcasting and licensing rights (mainly the coach’s shows on SNY and all the games shown there as well, but added to that the IMG contract).

UConn is not going to give up those rights. That’s why this comparison is not apt.

3. I don’t consider Fox the killer of the conference since the C7 split should have happened many years ago regardless. They all voted to split in 1992 (ironically, UConn got the Catholics to agree to take on the football schools) and in 2004 (but the money loss for the Catholics was too great, and brokering an agreement was impossible). In spirit, the conference schools had split already. And when you realize that the vast majority of the NCAA credits came from Ville, Syracuse, Pitt, and especially UConn, the strength of the conference in basketball was not going to be hurt much (though G’town has had a recent resurgence).

For all these reasons, I’m not buying the idea that the Fox money is some sort of coup.

Also realize that the BE has over $70 million in its coffers of NCAA credits, as well as $68 million in exit fees, and it will recoup some more from ND, Ville and Rutgers’ departure, as well as the negotiations with the C7. So there’s a lot of dough there. For schools like Cincy and UConn, the licensing money plus the load in the bank vault should last for at least 5 years until there is more clarity.

It’s not just Tier 3. It’s not just the games on SNY. It’s also the coaching show and all licensing through IMG. If you look at the USA Today NCAA database, you’ll see $24.75 million under licensing for UConn. Which is $10 million a year from IMG (they produce the coaches’ shows and also market the school), $1.2-1.5 from women’s bball, and then the men’s bball and football are separate. I suspect that adds up to about $15m when you include IMG. Then the rest of the $9m is in marketing/ads at the games. So, UConn is going to protect that $first 15 million at the very least that’s tied into the SNY games and shows.

“But assuming the numbers are correct, you can’t compare these because you are essentially comparing apples to oranges.”
To a certain degree, no doubt… Every conference’s contracts are different in the rights a school retains vs. what are pooled. The value of retained rights is also going to differ for every school. That said, and we’ve discussed it here on previous blogs, I think these differences are largely over blown.

“Who owns tier 2 and tier 3 for the BE? Does Fox own all the rights of the C7? Don’t imagine that this is an insignificant question for the likes of UConn.”
We’ll like I said above, I don’t think it as big as you are trying to make it out to be.

“It earns $24.75 million a year in broadcasting and licensing rights (mainly the coach’s shows on SNY and all the games shown there as well, but added to that the IMG contract).”
1) That $24.7 million isn’t mainly their coaches shows, no way… 2) The Syracuse IMG contract is an $80 million/10 year deal or $8 million a year. Nebraska, Michigan, and Ohio State all have larger IMG deals than that in a conference that has less “2nd and 3rd tier” rights. 3) According to the the USA today database you are using for your $24.75 million a year in “broadcasting and licensing rights,” under the same column Michigan is at $46.75 million and Ohio State is at $43.6 million, again in a conference that has less 2nd and 3rd tier rights. I’m not sure how you want to explain that.

“It’s not just Tier 3. It’s not just the games on SNY. It’s also the coaching show and all licensing through IMG. If you look at the USA Today NCAA database, you’ll see $24.75 million under licensing for UConn. “
See above though. Michigan is earning almost double that in a conference most would say doesn’t have any 2nd tier rights and has some of the more limited 3rd tier rights.

It’s impossible for me to figure out what portion of the tv rights are aggregated under the $24.75 million. I know only portions of it which you can find in the press, such as the fact that UConn’s IMG deal is worth $10 million a year, and that’s IMG putting together the shows. Beyond that, there are deals with SNY for women’s bball at $1.2-$1.5m a year. For some reason, UConn’s football and men’s basketball is not announced. Say that together they make $3 million, that’s $4.2 to $4.5. This is why I stated that about $15m of the $24.75m comes from broadcasting rights. By the way, if you compare UConn’s licensing to Rutgers or the average ACC member ($17 million) UConn’s is way higher. Rutgers’ huge TV market hasn’t been captured yet, whereas UConn’s is saturated with UConn 4 days a week.

“It’s impossible for me to figure out what portion of the tv rights are aggregated under the $24.75 million. “

I don’t think you need to though. That is what I’ve been trying to tell you. When Michigan is nearly doubling that amount without any third tier television rights in the two major revenue sports; that is a fairly good sign it doesn’t matter.
“I know only portions of it which you can find in the press, such as the fact that UConn’s IMG deal is worth $10 million a year, and that’s IMG putting together the shows.”

It isn’t $10 million. It is an $80 million deal over 10 years, so an average of $8 million. Again, Nebraska and Ohio State both have IMG deals larger than that. Said IMG deal is going to be had in virtually any conference for UCONN. For the purposes of apples to oranges comparisons in your first post, they are pretty darn close regardless of the conference and thus largely irrelevant. Even in the SEC where schools retain the rights to a football game, most of the contracts are only in the range of $10 million a year.

And it isn’t just coaches’ shows. I’d wager those are some the less valuable things in the deal. The IMG/Learfield deals typically cover radio rights, corporate sponsorships, advertising both on the media platforms and in stadium, and potentially managing media rights retained by the schools.

The reason I mention the IMG deal is because they do produce the shows and the shows so far have gotten very high ratings. To give you but one example, the women’s games have been the highest ranked show on TV not only on cable, but on all TV including network, with the coaches show doing half of that. If UConn were to leave SNY for a comprehensive Fox deal in the C7, all that would be lost. So how do you monetize that? I’m thinking again it’s more than $4.5m (the direct SNY tier 3 payout) but probably not too much more.

The reason I mention the IMG deal is because they do produce the shows and the shows so far have gotten very high ratings.”
Yes but the production, distribution, and advertising pertaining to the shows is covered in what IMG paid UConn $8 million a year for. It is covered in what IMG pays Nebraska $8.7 million a year for.
“To give you but one example, the women’s games have been the highest ranked show on TV not only on cable, but on all TV including network, with the coaches show doing half of that. If UConn were to leave SNY for a comprehensive Fox deal in the C7, all that would be lost. “
Another moot point. Short of joining the Big Ten (and even then it looks like schools have plenty of games to do with as they please especially non-conference) no conference has as you put it a “comprehensive” deal for women’s basketball. It is a sport that UConn is fairly unique in being able to monetize.
“So how do you monetize that? I’m thinking again it’s more than $4.5m (the direct SNY tier 3 payout) but probably not too much more.”
I don’t see anything about a $4.5 million SNY payment on the internet. I see stuff about a sub $2 million rights fee payment from SNY for women’s basketball. It is unclear if UConn gets all of that or not.

I think you’re missing some points here. UConn also did a deal with SNY for football and men’s basketball, not only women’s basketball. That’s the $4.5m I’m referring to. If UConn doesn’t get it, then who does? They did the deal, they get the proceeds. As for IMG, yes they produce the show–but there is no show if there is no game! That’s the point. IMG does not get money for UConn’s tier 3 rights.

“UConn also did a deal with SNY for football and men’s basketball, not only women’s basketball.”
I see no evidence of this deal at all on the internet and quite frankly I don’t think it is possible. Those are ESPN’s rights. I see more circumstantial evidence though that the SNY content (other than the women’s basketball) is sublicensed from ESPN the rights holder for the conference. This means any direct financial benefit of the football games for sure and more than likely the basketball games as well broadcast on SNY goes not to UConn, not to the Big East, but to ESPN.

“That’s the $4.5m I’m referring to.”
Like I said above, I’m not convinced this $4.5 million exists. The women’s deal is clearly on the side (but still not clear that UConn is getting 100% of the $4.5 million/4 year deal).
“If UConn doesn’t get it, then who does? They did the deal, they get the proceeds. “
Well as noted above, the men’s rights may not have been retained by the school to give to SNY. And even if there was a “deal” it wasn’t necessarily UConn that negotiated it (IMG) and it wouldn’t necessarily be UCONN getting all or part of the revenue (IMG). That would all depend on what UConn ended up selling to IMG when they signed their contract.

“As for IMG, yes they produce the show–but there is no show if there is no game! That’s the point.”
They not only produce the show. They are responsible for distributing it and selling advertising for it. They’ve basically paid UConn for the rights to the show. No different than ESPN paying the Big East for the right to football and basketball games.

“IMG does not get money for UConn’s tier 3 rights. ”
Yes they do. That is why they are willing to pay schools $8+ million. 3rd tier rights in the sense that it is anything retained by the school is a broad range of things. The coaches shows (ads and distribution), the radio rights(ads and distribution), potential television rights, in stadium advertising, corporate sponsorships are all 3rd tier rights. They also are the things IMG and Learfield buy from the schools. Buying those rights shifts the risk over to IMG. The tradeoff is IMG also is in line to get any excess profits. The schools have sold their rights to them just as conferences sell their 1st and 2nd tier rights to ESPN or Fox. ESPN and Fox bear the profits and or losses depending on how they monetize the inventory they buy.

“You are without a doubt definitely wrong on this.”
No I am not.
“ESPN does not have the BE’s tier 3 rights”
In a sense no one does. ESPN controls the rights for football and basketball.
From MattSarz’s site,
“Big East – UPDATED: Same as the ACC. ESPN owns everything. Schools can buy back some content from ESPN (some OOC basketball, replay rights, etc.).”

“UConn sells those rights direct in deals with SNY.”
That article you linked to provides no such evidence of this.

“IMG gets the money from the shows around the games. But without the games, there are no shows.”
Yes, but they also get money directly from the games via radio broadcasts, and other multimedia rights. The IMG’s and Learfield’s of the world basically pay to become the 3rd tier rights holders for the schools they have deals with. That is IMG’s college business model.
“SNY pays ESPN for production. But it pays UConn for the rights.”
The fact that ESPN is willing to produce the games is a pretty good indicator the games were ESPN’s to begin with. And again, if these games are ESPN’s, no UConn is not getting paid for the rights to games that they don’t have the right to sell.

Especially in a basketball power conference like the Big East was, ESPN is going to come in and pay for everything. Short of the SEC and now the Big XII, and their exceptions are very public, major conference schools don’t get the rights to valuable content like football games. They assigned those rights to the conference and the conference sold them off to ESPN.

You write this: “Yes, but they also get money directly from the games via radio broadcasts, and other multimedia rights. The IMG’s and Learfield’s of the world basically pay to become the 3rd tier rights holders for the schools they have deals with. That is IMG’s college business model.”

And you write this: “And again, if these games are ESPN’s, no UConn is not getting paid for the rights to games that they don’t have the right to sell.”

So, which is it? Does UConn give rights to IMG? And, if so, hen why did you write that it doesn’t have the rights to sell?

The article I linked to said that UConn contracted with SNY. So, you think the contract is charity? Or is the article wrong? We know ESPN has the right to these games, but that doesn’t mean it shows them. It doesn’t. So why does ESPN take a fee to produce? Because, one, it defrays the cost of production, and two, ESPN does show these games out of market on ESPN3.

“So, which is it? Does UConn give rights to IMG? And, if so, hen why did you write that it doesn’t have the rights to sell?”
Those two statements aren’t contradictory at all. Statement 1) IMG is a 3rd tier rights holder for colleges Statement 2) In this situation these are not 3rd tier rights. If ESPN has the rights to Big East football games and chooses to sublicense some UConn games to SNY, that is a separate transaction that does not involve UConn’s and or IMG’s rights.
“The article I linked to said that UConn contracted with SNY.”
It says SNY reached a deal to show 300 hours of programming. That doesn’t say anything about how the programming was acquired, who is getting paid and how much.
“So, you think the contract is charity?”
Of course not. Although the University is certainly going to be pleased with the publicity SNY provides.
“ Or is the article wrong?”
I don’t know that I would say the article is wrong necessarily. It just doesn’t mention where anyof the content is coming from and anything about compensation.

“We know ESPN has the right to these games, but that doesn’t mean it shows them. It doesn’t. So why does ESPN take a fee to produce? Because, one, it defrays the cost of production, and two, ESPN does show these games out of market on ESPN3.”
In the old Big XII contract, Fox had the rights for anything not shown on ABC for football. That is a lot of inventory and more than Fox could fill (this is pre games on FX and pre games on Big Fox). Fox sold sublicensed games to TBS for a while, Versus (now NBC Sports), and ESPN. The SEC and ACC have had sub-licensed syndication packages with Raycom and Jefferson Pilot, etc. So when you have more inventory than you can show, you sell it.
This happens at the network level though. ESPN paid for the games and they can do with them as they please subject to their agreement with the Big East. Some conferences have clauses for profit sharing if the rights are sub-licensed, some conferences have clauses where they have to sign off on any sub-licensing deal. But this is all taking place above the school level.
You want me to belive that UConn has a separate unreported contract for football and basketball games that it probably doesn’t own with unreported income. Let’s try this a different way. Look how easy it is to find the value of the UConn IMG deal and the SNY women’s basketball deal. Why is there nothing on the basketball/football?

That’s why I think those three schools will lean towards Big Ten as opposed to SEC if push comes to shove. The SEC doesn’t sponsor wrestling, or men’s soccer, or men’s and women’s lacrosse. Kind of hard to park all those teams in a lower-tier conference (e.g., MAC, C-USA) and then retain your top 25 status in the Directors’ Cup.

2 SEC schools offer Men’s soccer, and a different 2 play women’s lacrosse. If 2 ACC schools joined, I could see Slive moving to get a couple more current schools playing those sports to add to the SEC inventory.

If the upcoming network really does have the reported financial projections, I hope the conference passes a requirement that each school adds at least 2 sports (1 men, 1 women) to their current offerings.

Unless there is an unbelievably massive international backlash wrestling (in the Olympics) is dead. The executive committee wants it gone because it doesn’t provide the massive kickbacks other sports do.

ccrider had an excellent post earlier giving some information about the poor treatment wrestling has dealt with at the hands of the IOC.

To be brutally honest IMO opinion it’s time to just tear the whole thing down and start over.

It will be Russa, all the ‘stans, Iran, plus Turkey and Japan who both are bidding on the ’20 games that have the juice to maybe get this reversed. Quite a few of their top political leaders are former wrestlers and very avid. I’m not sure the board members that voted this thing would be safe visiting many of those places unprotected. In some places their wrestling fans make SEC football fanaticism seem like the British Royalties polite, subdued attendance at Wimbledon.

I respect the true wrestling, the one with the tradition going back to the ancient Greeks. Never understood adding dirt biking or women’s boxing to the program. Score another one for political correctness.

No network killed the Big East. It was the make up of the Big East from the beginning that killed it. A make shift group of part time, football only and basketball only schools. There was no stability from day one. THAT is what eventually killed the Big East, NOT some TV network.

Something you’ll never see in the SEC (and they’d be dragged kicking and screaming out of it if the playoff rules require that to happen). Good for the B1G. Another reason why I’ve become a fan of this conference. Now if they can swing another 4 to 6 schools then they’re good to go.

MSU’s largest alumni group is in Chicago and they do a lot of recruiting in that area and throughout Illinois which is also moving west. It’s a short drive for the fans from East Lansing to Evanston and tickets are easy to get. Wouldn’t be surprise to see MSU as Northwestern’s first opponent at Wrigley Field. Also, Wisconsin is a big rival and will be in the west, plus it sets up the possibility of playing Michigan twice in one season. As a resident of the state of Michigan, I would love to see the teams in separate divisions.

Yeah, I’d imagine Northwestern being in the West is important since their AD has said on a couple of occasions that they view the Chicago visits as the second most important thing to playing Michigan on an annual basis.

MSU in the west would guarantee annual games with NU, MI and WI, all of which are highly desirable for MSU.

NE and IA are pretty well enjoyed as well. So assuming a 9 game season, 5 games are guaranteed interesting matchup for the MSU fanbase and I’m sure there will be more in most years. I’m a big fan of the season-ender. Maybe we can set up NW or WI as a locked season ender; that would be interesting.

I also think it could help MSU’s recruiting frankly as they might be able to break away a little bit from UM and OSU.

If we can keep ND as a more or less annual affair, we’d have good home schedules every year. I’d rather play ND than anyone else OOC – no question.

The downside is not playing OSU or PSU as much. I’m not overly concerned about playing MD and Rutgers often.

“Interesting that Michigan State is actively lobbying to be in the West.”

Do you have a link to go with that? I’m not doubting you, but I haven’t seen any recent quotes to that effect.

“This confirms something that I posted a couple threads ago asking Michigan State fans if they’d rather have a better chance of success than being in the same division as Michigan.”

Didn’t you get mixed answers to that? I know at least one of the MSU guys said they’d rather be in the east and beat the best despite me showing that MSU would expect to lose an extra game per year that way.

“Definitely makes sense to get the last spot in the West than be in the East with OSU/Michigan/Penn State.”

More importantly, it improves balance a little.

I used B10 results from 2003-2012 to determine W% against each team. For NE, I assigned the average of PSU and MI. I looked up the conference W% of all 14 teams and found RU was about the average of NW and PU, so I used that value across the board, and MD was about the average of PU and MN, so I used that value across the board.

The following table is the number of expected wins in a 9 game season for 3 different alignments. The first number is for E/W with MSU in the west (only MI/MSU locked). The second is with MSU in the east (only IN/PU locked). The third is for no divisions (the ideal balanced schedule).

2. MSU in the west hurts WI, PU and OSU the most while helping MSU, RU and MD. I know OSU seems counter-intuitive, but they have a better record against MSU than PU over the past 10 years. That shouldn’t continue, but I didn’t fudge any of the data.

3. I didn’t include the numbers, but MSU in the west comes much closer to the balanced schedule of no divisions (difference of 1.24 versus 1.63 wins in the sum of absolute differences)

4. MSU in the West is mathematically more fair. It also better balances the brands, which is often the more important form of balance. MSU gets 2 rivalries they want (WI and NW) while keeping MI. WI gets everyone they want, including MSU.

I also hope that they only lock Michigan-Michigan State if this is the case. I don’t like the idea of Penn State locked into Nebraska as well as the other two kings, and who would Ohio State get locked into? Wisconsin?

I’d rather the Buckeyes not be locked at all, and see the balance of the other division more often. If That School Up North doesn’t want being locked to the Spartans to give the Buckeyes an easier path, they can damn well pull for MSU in the eastern division.

The options are within ~1/4th of a win for practically all teams, in all scenarios. One win every four years is close enough to be, in essence, statistically tied. There is probably at least that much error in the analysis, due to the fact that 3 out of 14 teams don’t have much history competing against the others.

“One win every four years is close enough to be, in essence, statistically tied.”

It’s not a statistically significant difference given the inherent error in estimating 3 teams and the yearly fluctuations for teams anyway (or at least I can’t show that it is significant), but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

“I suspect the debate among the Big Ten ADs is whether this arrangement is giving WI and MSU a bit too much of what they want, at the expense of the other western teams.”

Has anyone heard of PU wanting to be in the west? If not, that means the two schools in question both want the same thing. So let’s look at the rest:

I don’t see SOS concerns winning the day, especially when the math doesn’t support that as an issue for most teams. So where is the expense to the west? As I’ve shown elsewhere, they won’t play kings that much less often.

All eastern kings – 1 in 12 years lost
OSU and MI only – 1 in 10 years lost

I don’t see enough cost to not give MSU and PU what they seem to want.

Didn’t the Buckeyes AD say something along the lines of a schedule with Indiana, Purdue, Rutgers and Maryland every year being less than exciting? While the Buckeyes might prefer to swap Indiana for MSU, the Spartans is an upgrade in terms of selling that ticket book.

He said he didn’t want RU, MD, IL, IN and PU every year. That would have been 5 of 8 games back when he said it. Now you have 9+ games and IL isn’t included. That’s very different. Besides, many fans in western OH and IN go to the games at PU.

Especially if the Big10 becomes the Big20, but even if they don’t, they may lobby the NCAA to allow schools in those conferences who don’t play a conference championship game an exemption to participate in a kick-off-classic-type 13th game the last weekend of August every 4 years.

On net, that would likely be more lucrative for the B10 as well as pretty much every other conference outside of the SEC, and even the SEC may drop their title game in order to have 4 schools (in a 16 school league) participate in a kick-off-classic-type game every 4 years and so that they don’t decrease their chances of sending 2 schools to the 4-team playoff.

With 20 schools, the B10 could have 5 schools playing in that type of game every year. They could have one matchup against the Pac, one against the B12, one against the ACC (or, if the ACC refuses to play because of the raiding, one against the BE), and one against the SEC if they’re allowed to as well as one against the MAC (which would essentially be an extra home game for the B10 school). For those schools who are insistent on having 7 home games, an extra 13th game every 4 years would allow for 10 conference games, 1 major OOC opponent, and still 7 home games (if they face a MAC or SunBelt school in the kickoff game) 3 of every 4 years.

Thinking about this more, if the SEC joins in, the B10 could have 5 series:
vs. SEC
vs. Pac
vs. B12
vs. MAC (for schools who want an extra home game)
vs. SunBelt (for schools who want an extra home game)

With an expansion to 20, B10 schools would already be regularly visiting places in the Midwest and the entire Eastern seaboard.

This setup would allow B10 schools to visit the rest of the south and the west as well.

If FSU, GTech, UNC, Duke, UVa, and Pitt are added to form a B20, I would want 3 protected games with 10 conference games (meeting the nonprotected schools 7/16 of the time, so every class would play almost every other conference member home and away over 4 years).
OSU-Michigan
FSU-PSU
FSU-UNL
Would be annual games (as well as a bunch of others that I figured out).
FSU gets a little bit of a tougher schedule, but they also have the best recruiting grounds (over 16 years, in 12 years, all the kings would face the same number of kings:2 each for 10 years and 4 each for 2 years; the other 4 years, FSU faces all 4 kings while the other 4 face 2 each). All members of the current 14-school B10 would have an annual series with a king except for Northwestern, Maryland, and one of IU/PU (I have them rotating in a spot against OSU). Even those schools who don’t have an annual series with a king would face a king 35/16 of the time, or a little over twice a year on average. That’s worse than in the 12-school B10, when the least often a school would face a king on average was 2.4 times but better than in the traditional 10-school B10, when a school faced a king only 1 or 2 times a year.

You could have only 2 protected games, allowing you to meet the other schools 8/17 of the time, but that would mean sacrificing annual series like Iowa-Wisconsin, the Little Brown Jug game, and either UNL-FSU or UNL-Wisconsin, which to me would not be worth it given the minimal gain.

They weren’t wanted back when the haul of a regular season game was a fraction of what it is now and the revenue of an exempt game wasn’t directly controlled by the conferences.

Exempt games that bring in 8 figures with revenues that flow to the conferences directly may be a different story. Especialy if they can be packaged as an experience for the players. Kind of like a pre-season bowl game experience.

Also, with the exemption for a 13th game every 4 years, a school could have 7 home games every year even with 10 conference games if they are OK with playing a major OOC opponent only 3 out of 4 years.

Especially if the Big10 becomes the Big20, but even if they don’t, they may lobby the NCAA to allow schools in those conferences who don’t play a conference championship game an exemption to participate in a kick-off-classic-type 13th game the last weekend of August every 4 years.

Which conferences are you thinking of? Currently, every major conference except the Big XII has a CCG. And the Big XII will probably have one within the next five years. I don’t see any scenario where the SEC gives up its championship game; it’s one of the most valuable non-bowl games in the sport.

So what you’re talking about, really, is just adding a 13th regular-season game for some teams. Once you’ve done that, why limit it to four or five teams per conference? Bear in mind, some schools could play up to 16 games (13 regular-season, CCG, two playoff games). There are concerns about the battering the players’ bodies would absorb.

A more likely scenario is that they add a 13th game for FBS teams to host FCS teams, in a sort of regular-season tune-up in late August that wouldn’t count in the standings. A number of coaches have said they want this.

Think outside the box. My proposal is either/or. Either a conference title game or kick-off classics (in order to limit the total number of non-postseason games to 13). Yes, many conferences have conference title games now, but except for the SEC and B10, they’re not all that lucrative; likely not as lucrative as several kick-off classics, so I forsee those conferences abandoning title games for kick-off classics if they have a choice. Even the SEC might for the reason I gave above if the kickoff classics bring in more dough.

@Richard: Feel free to share those “real numbers” (any what they think about 1 title game vs. several kick-off classics) any day that you like.

I didn’t say that I have the real numbers; only that the people who do are not proposing your system.

What I know is that several conferences have added CCGs in recent years. The one major conference that doesn’t have a CCG (the Big XII) is calling for liberalized rules, that would make it easier to stage one.

“What I know is that several conferences have added CCGs in recent years.”

Right, because in a system where pre-season 13th games are not allowed, it’s logical to play CCGs instead.

“No one is calling for your idea.”

Possibly because many folks are like you and unwilling to think outside the box. Also possibly because regular season games didn’t go up in so much value until relatively recently. Also because megaconferences didn’t exist in the past.

No one was calling for CCG’s either until the SEC did one and showed how lucrative it is.
No one was calling for a conference network until the B10 did one and showed how lucrative it is, so the “no one has proposed it yet” argument is a weak one.

@Richard: The set of things that hasn’t been done is infinite. Most ideas in that infinite set will never be done, because they are terrible.

College football is an inherently conservative sport: change comes very slowly, and usually not until there has been very considerable public discussion. So before such a change would be made, the people in charge would be talking about it. Right now, they’re not. They’re actually moving in the opposite direction. Hence, I readily conclude that it ain’t happening in the foreseeable future.

Maybe they’re wrong, but intuitively, your idea sounds just awful, so I’m not surprised that no one is pursuing it.

No, the NCAA rule allowing CCG was already in existence. The SEC simply took advantage of an existing rule, enacted to help oversized lower level conferences arrive at a logical, acceptable championship.

@Marc
You’re wrong. Everyone on this board has told you that you are wrong. The only discussion was in that article posted in the last thread when the NCAA head tried to tell the SEC commissioner not to use the existing rule, that it wasn’t meant for Division I football.

I agree that it’s about eyeballs. The question is how much more of a premium a CCG draws over a regular game. Note that for a 12-school conference, the CCG only has to draw 1.5 times more than a regular game to be more worthwhile than my proposal of late August games every 4 years, but for a 20-school conference, the CCG would have to draw 2.5 times more.

Schools in conferences like the MAC and Sun Belt can count on 3 X $1M = $3M in guarantees annually under my proposal. Does the MAC currently get that much for its CCG? I’d be a little surprised if they do.

You’re forgetting something: exclusivity. People are watching the playoffs even if their teams aren’t in it, and they often have wide-open windows where nothing else is on. Advertisers will pay more for big games. They always have and always will.

To say nothing of the actual emotional attachment that a championship run can do for the viewer. I mean, you’re essentially proposing MLB drop the World Series for 105 games spread between 30 teams.

Exclusivity is all fine and good, but if the CCG brings in less financially than 5 kickoff classics, what inherent value does exclusivity have?

“Advertisers will pay more for big games. They always have and always will.”

It almost seems like you didn’t read my post. I didn’t dispute that a CCG will bring in more money than 1 regular season game, but will it bring in more than 1.5 times more or more than 2.5 times more money?

“To say nothing of the actual emotional attachment that a championship run can do for the viewer. I mean, you’re essentially proposing MLB drop the World Series for 105 games spread between 30 teams.”

Actually, it’s more like dropping the divisional playoff series, unless you’re saying that the B10 CCG means more to you than the Rose Bowl or national title game.

Speaking of which, when did you become so attached to the B10 CCG? Did you feel a vast, empty, unfillable void in your soul the 100+ years when the B10 didn’t hold a CCG? Did no B10 team ever stage a title run before 2011?

Nevertheless, in case you’ve noticed, MLB is increasing the number of divisional playoff games, not curtailing them.

Speaking of which, when did you become so attached to the B10 CCG?

The practical reality is, without it, you could easily have two 8-1 teams who didn’t play each other, and no fair way to decide which one gets the Rose Bowl or playoff bid. That becomes far more probable as the conference grows.

Actually, @Richard, I am probably older than you. I remember rule that very well.

I’m just asking you: who is it, with decision-making influence in the sport, that has shown any indication of pining for those old days? Everything they are saying and doing, is moving in the opposite direction.

So…follow the Oregon example a couple years ago and lose a NC shot first week by losing (to LSU in this example) by playing a high profile opener? How much value is lost for each game the rest of the year?

Is this just a re-do of the B12 attempt to get a 13th game without enlarging the conference?

You’d be adding 20 new football games the weekend before the current regular season. (As I understand @Richard’s proposal, it’s four games per conference, for all five of the major conferences.)

There aren’t enough time slots in one weekend for all of those games to be featured; many of them would be relegated to undesirable time slots on second- or third-tier networks, with a number of competing games played simultaneously. Moreover, it would be a weekend in late August, traditionally a low ratings period, when many viewers are on late summer holidays, and not yet focused on football. Those games aren’t all going to be Michigan vs. Alabama. You’re going to have miscellaneous Purdue vs Texas Tech type games too, that aren’t big draws, except perhaps for the fans of those two schools.

In contrast, the CCGs are shown on a weekend when most teams are no longer playing. They have featured time slots on major networks, without a ton of other games competing with them, and with a major bowl appearance or playoff spot at stake. My guess is that one big game at the end of the season is worth more money to the SEC than four overlapping and far less meaningful ones in late August.

And that’s before you consider all of the competitive issues (conference championships not decided on the field, uneven numbers of games, extra road trips, etc.).

A team could lose luster after a kickoff classic-type game, but it could gain it as well.
The same holds true for conference title games. Plus, if a 4-team playoff had been in place, Oregon probably would have gotten in.

Note that in a world with a 4-team playoff, you will find yourself in a situation where a team may be better off by losing and not making the conference title game than by winning and going. For instance, in 2012, UGa went to the CCG because they beat UF, but UF likely would have benefitted if a 4-team playoff was in place as they would have been selected while UGa would have had to beat ‘Bama to make the playoff.

Imagine the uproar that would have resulted.

Marc:

Superconferences have not existed up to now. Nor has a 4-team playoff. With the changing landscape, people may well discover that the old ways were better after all.

Jr size super conferences (large enough to hold CCG, the only truly distinguishing feature) have existed and have CCG’s. The PAC and B1G have joined in. The only conference to no longer hold one is the one that got raided/abandoned to a level they were unable to replenish with valuable enough schools to not net a loss getting back to 12 including the CCG value.

Huh? Of course only the SEC CCG is the SEC title game.
Yeah, I get it. But I call BS. Will every year be great? No, but OSU/ Neb or USC/Ore certainly are potentially their equal, at least to the regions and fan bases.

“On net, that would likely be more lucrative for the B10 as well as pretty much every other conference outside of the SEC, and even the SEC may drop their title game in order to have 4 schools (in a 16 school league) participate in a kick-off-classic-type game every 4 years and so that they don’t decrease their chances of sending 2 schools to the 4-team playoff.”

Notice the word “may”. How does that become me premising this idea on the SEC dropping their CCG?

Even if they don’t, the B10 and other leagues may find it more lucrative to hold the kickoff classics instead.

ccrider:

Sure, the CCG’s may be more lucrative. In fact, I’d expect them to be more lucrative than regular season games. But the key question is if they are more than 1.5 times as lucrative (to a 12-school league), more than 2 times as lucrative to a 16-school league, and more than 2.5 times as lucrative to a 20-school league.

For simplicity assume media contract is 80% for FB. PAC (because i remember their numbers…i think) is getting 4.4mm per contracted game. Fox supposedly paid 25mm for the CCG plus other obligations. I think the game itself was about 15mm of that. So you’re over 3X the reg season, before diluting the season with additional games of questionable value.

For conferences like the Pac that has to host on school sites (the B12 as well if they ever expand to 12 and hold a CCG) and the ACC (and a bunch of lower conferences) who usually don’t come close to selling out their CCG, 2 regular season games almost certainly bring in more ticket revenue than 1 CCG.

Overall, I’d wager that the extra money a CCG brings in over a regular season game is less than double for most conferences and possibly less than 1.5 times for some conferences.

Which conferences would drop their CCG in order to have a kick-off classic?

I can’t see the Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12 or ACC doing it. So that leaves the Big 12 and whichever Mid-Majors would do it.

I don’t follow any of the Mid-Majors closely except the MAC ~ surely the MAC wouldn’t trade a kick-off classic weekend to give up their championship game. Their CCG is typically their biggest profile game of the year ~ and the only big profile game where a MAC school is guaranteed to come out as winner.

It’s not ratings, but what is bid for the CCG that matters, and that’s done years in advance. Far more certainty at ESPN/Fox/etc that a CCG will be valuable. Far more certainty that media really isn’t looking for a boatload of more exhibition/preseason inventory, too.

Uh, the CCG bids are based off of projected ratings. The networks are not in the business of losing money, and if the CCG’s get only 1.5 times the ratings of a regular season game on average, they’ll get only 1.5 times the payout of a regular season game.
As for inventory, I disagree. Unlike in pro football, there are no exhibition games in college football; these games would count just as much. Also, if you haven’t noticed, the networks (and sports fans) have an insatiable appetite for NFL pre-season games (due to boffo ratings).

I understand. But the media bidding on a CCG package isn’t bidding billions over a decade plus for maybe 500+ games. They are bidding on the POTENTIAL ratings of a few games at the end of seasons that have separated the wheat from the chaff. A year that doesn’t meet expectation wont be felt at all compared to over biding for regular season contract.

A 14-school B10 may not find it more lucrative, but a Big20 may find kick-off classics featuring 5 B20 teams to be more lucrative than 1 CCG.

Once you allow 25 percent of the schools to play a 13th game, why not just allow everyone to play it? The CCGs have a sporting purpose, i.e., to determine a champion. And you have to earn your way there, on the playing field.

Once you introduce games for the sole purpose of expanding the season (and making money from it), the other 75 percent are likely to say, “Why not us?” I’m not really seeing the logic of limiting it to a quarter of the programs. There is no rhyme or reason to that.

“Once you introduce games for the sole purpose of expanding the season (and making money from it), the other 75 percent are likely to say, “Why not us?” I’m not really seeing the logic of limiting it to a quarter of the programs. There is no rhyme or reason to that.”

In order to limit the wear and tear on athletes. Once every 4 years means a kid only plays an extra game once over his school career (while someone on ‘Bama’s squad could have played a bunch of extra games over his career with a CCG setup). The other programs will be allowed to play the extra game when their turn comes, so I don’t see anyone saying “why not us?”

Oh, and let’s be real: the CCG’s are money grabs, plain and simple. The B12 currently has a very fair, simple, and elegant way of determining a conference champion, yet they still want to hold a CCG (for no good reason other than getting more money).

@Richard: I entirely agree with you that CCGs are money grabs, but there is a legal fiction at work. The NCAA purports to promote player safety, amateurism, and fair play. For every rule, they can at least claim that is the purpose, even if it also happens to make money.

Those who vote on the rules would ask, I think rightfully: how are these goals advanced by more-than-doubling the number of teams that play an extra game; and once you’ve allowed that, what is the rationale for stopping there? What meaningful difference is there [in terms of player safety] between one game every three years, rather than one every four? After all, comparatively few players actually see much action for four full seasons.

“@Richard: I entirely agree with you that CCGs are money grabs, but there is a legal fiction at work. The NCAA purports to promote player safety, amateurism, and fair play. For every rule, they can at least claim that is the purpose, even if it also happens to make money.”

Really? What was the noble purpose of going from 11 regular season games to 12 regular season games?

As for the 13th game every 4 years, it can be spun as a cultural enrichment experience; an opportunity for every player who plays 4 years to experience something akin to a bowl game at least once (if their conference sets it up that way) even if their team isn’t good enough to go to a bowl ever during their playing career. Even if the game takes place in their home stadium, I’d require the kickoff classics to organize kickoff breakfast/lunch/dinners and events over a day or 2 for the players.

Note that they can be played either Saturday or Sunday; I’d schedule most on Sunday.

That’s the point. Full round robin in division to eliminate what is eliminated by full RR in a conference small enough to achieve it, and is required of divisions in larger conferences to qualify for the 13th game as a CCG (as you know). It doesn’t eliminate ties.

The biggest move Delany made was when Penn State was down taking Rutgers and Maryland. Penn State was considering a move to ACC. With the whole eastern seaboard locked up. The ACC could have made a move to a super conference with Notre Dame.

That was not something the B1G could let happen. Which to get the ball rolling it gave Maryland a full share right away unlike Nebraska.

Given the Big Ten GOR, how the heck could Penn State have left for the ACC, especially considering the huge penalty it had to pay the NCAA? Delany’s add of Maryland and Rutgers helped prevent the Big Ten from becoming invisible on the eastern seaboard for the next few years (PSU basketball gets no ink at all outside State College) and will pay off in the long run.

The biggest move Delany made was when Penn State was down taking Rutgers and Maryland. Penn State was considering a move to ACC. With the whole eastern seaboard locked up. The ACC could have made a move to a super conference with Notre Dame.

[…] As much as ESPN takes the blame for their role in expansiopocolypse and the demise of the Big East with regards to Pitt and Syracuse leaving for the ACC, a real case is made that the utter destruction of the Big East is by the hands of Fox. […]

If the B1G invites UVA/UNC/DUKE/GT/FSU (as well as Johns Hopkins) and they accept,
but ND doesn’t wish to join at number 20 I would look for another jaw-dropper in the form
of VANDERBILT. The offer to join a conference with that much academic fire power, yearly pay out, and newly expanded Southern footprint would be hard to resist. I know SEC fans can’t imagine one of their own defecting, but that’s my dark horse and I’m sticking with it.

In any case, I don’t understand why the Big Ten wouldn’t sit at 18 and wait for Notre Dame. It wouldn’t really even be waiting, 18 is a full conference. Getting ND after that to go to 20 would be gravy (may take 30 years though).

Oh gee. Okay. Thanks for setting me straight. If you don’t mind, please humor me. If the scenario I laid out occurs, explain how it ‘doesn’t make sense’. That’s quite a bar to clear, considering the Universities involved. I look forward to your expert analysis.

Vanderbilt’s not going to get an invite to the Big Ten. They don’t bring a monetizable market that they can claim (they probably have less claim to Nashville than Georgia Tech has on Atlanta).

As far as culture and the like matter, there’s no real fit there. They’re a worse fit than Duke probably as far as cultural fit goes. I spent 3 years at Vanderbilt, and it’s as different from Northwestern as I can imagine two private universities of similar academic standing being.

In any case, where’s the money in it? Duke brings a top 10 hoops program and its rivalries in that arena.

Tennessee is not an especially coveted media market, and whatever it may be worth, the dominant school is UT. Vandy football and basketball games don’t attract much fan attention. They would probably dilute the Big Ten media deal. Academically, the Big Ten would probably be very happy to have Vandy, but not at the expense of taking on a school that doesn’t carry its weight financially.

When the new media deals are settled, I doubt that the SEC and the Big Ten payouts are going to be very far off. Schools will abandon rivalries if the money is good enough. But we’re not talking ACC vs. Big Ten, where the discrepancy will be huge. We’re talking SEC vs. Big Ten, where there won’t be much difference.

Vandy’s best major sport is baseball, and the SEC is obviously a much better home for that sport than the Big Ten.

“Vanderbilt is building a $31 million indoor practice field and multi-purpose facility that is due to be completed about Oct. 31. There also are more planned phases for renovations to McGugin Center.

Vanderbilt Stadium underwent several changes prior to last season that included artificial turf, a new video board and a berm in the open end zone that offered hillside seating. The berm expanded the stadium capacity to 40,550.

Williams said he thinks the ideal stadium capacity at this point would be 45,000, with the likely area for additional seating being in the corners or back of the open end zone.

“We’re going to meet with some people who have done some renovations, have them come in and walk the stadium with a number of our people and look at plans of the stadium as it is now,” Williams said. “We’ll get the possibilities and attach the cost to it.”

Part of the planning for stadium changes will have Williams and other key university figures setting up trips to visit and study approximately eight new or recently renovated college stadiums.

Williams cited California, Houston, SMU, Stanford, TCU and Wake Forest as probable stops. Houston has plans for a $105 million stadium that will seat 40,000 with built-in expansion options to reach 60,000.”

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The Big Ten will move to at least nine conference football games per season and possibly 10 according to league commissioner Jim Delany. The move has been rumored for several weeks, but Delany confirmed the decision yesterday:

“There’s real recognition that we now live in two regions of the country, and we want to make sure those are bound together as best we can, so more games (makes sense). Eight games is not on the table. It’s nine or 10.”

Ohio State AD Gene Smith also said: “There’s television considerations there when you have intriguing conference matchups that are better than some of our non-conference matchups, that’s an important piece.”

That could also be an important piece for the SEC moving forward. Under current plans, the Big Ten, Pac-12, and Big XII will all be playing at least nine conference games per year. The SEC currently plays eight league games. The SEC’s format results in one more cupcake game per year for each school and fewer visits to and from conference rivals.

Eventually — as we’ve stated for more than a year — the Southeastern Conference will move to a nine-game schedule. It will have to (barring a scheduling alliance with another conference). Its television partners and the league’s own SEC Network will require such a move for content purposes. And with a selection committee deciding each year’s four playoff participants, the SEC won’t be able to allow other leagues to claim their teams are playing tougher schedules. There is already a move to “spread the wealth” of football championships or else there would be no new playoff in the first place. If members of the selection committee can point to something as simple as “SEC teams play more creampuff non-conference games,” you better believe they’ll do so in order to get teams from as many leagues as possible into the playoffs each year.

But look again at Delany’s statement. “We now live in two regions of the country,” meaning the Midwest and the East. There are hardly as many Big Ten schools in the East as there are in the Midwest. But more are probably on the way.

In recent weeks we’ve reported that our sources have said Virginia and Georgia Tech have both had contact with the Big Ten. We’ve been told those schools are waiting to see the final bill Maryland will have to pay to get out of the ACC before they decide whether or not to follow the Terrapins’ lead. Everyone and their brother is now reporting the same thing (or at least reporting on the reports that are already out there).

There have also been rumors that the Big Ten is wooing North Carolina, Duke, Boston College, and Florida State. At MrSEC.com, we don’t see BC or FSU as being realistic partners with the Big Ten as they lack AAU status, but we’ll mention the rumors just the same.

By adding Maryland and Rutgers late last year, Delany’s league made it clear that it is a) looking to add large numbers of cable households for its Big Ten Network and b) trying to expand southward. As Delany himself has mentioned time and again, part of the decision to look south is driven by population shifts and demographics. Several Big Ten states have the slowest growth rates in the country. Some of the fastest growing states are in the South. So if you want more television revenue and you need robust populations to create new students and donors, clearly you try to grab a number of top schools farther south.

So what’s this have to do with adding conference games?

A move to nine or 10 conference games could be a lure to a number of ACC schools. “Come with us and you can continue to pal around with a number of your old buddies.” If the Big Ten — and this is simply speculation — were to add Virginia, North Carolina, Duke, and Georgia Tech to the recently nabbed Maryland and Rutgers, well, that would be an East Division.

And Delany seems to be considering several moves that would please the ACC schools on his wish list.

There have been recent rumblings that the Big Ten might add lacrosse power Johns Hopkins to its roster of teams in some partial capacity. That league’s academic consortium — the Committee on Institutional Cooperation — already includes the University of Chicago, once a full-fledged Big Ten member before it downshifted out of the world of big-time athletics. Opening a door to Johns Hopkins for lacrosse and the CIC would not require a paradigm shift as the Big Ten already has a partial member.

Now consider the fact that the Big Ten has three lacrosse-playing schools who have to play that sport in other conferences. And also keep in mind that the four current, lacrosse-playing ACC schools are Maryland (moving to the Big Ten), Virginia, North Carolina, and Duke. Hmmm.

Let’s take a step back and look at the big picture here. Delany has said that his league has to pay attention to population shifts into the Sun Belt region. He’s just grabbed Rutgers and Maryland. One of those schools brings the nation’s largest television market into the Big Ten fold. The other provides the Washington, DC and Baltimore markets as well as a gateway into the South. Adding Johns Hopkins would give the Big Ten the opportunity to create a lacrosse league for new ACC targets and it would further strengthen the Big Ten’s academic reputation. Finally, Delany’s league will be adding conference games which will allow any new ACC targets to play each other more often and soften the blow of realignment/expansion.

That’s a lot to sell to the administrations of Virginia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Duke.

They could join the richest college conference (which also makes the Big Ten a stable college conference). They could enter a peer group of some of the top academic universities in the country (including the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins). Lacrosse schools like Virginia, Duke and North Carolina could partner with Johns Hopkins, Maryland, Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan to form a strong league. And those Eastern/Southern teams could play each other more often in football and basketball.

It would be hard for the SEC or any other conference to match such a league in terms of cable households, nationally-known sports brands, and academic reputation. If the Big Ten could pull all of that off it would — in theory — set itself up for years of success to come.

I am not sure it has been touched on in here but I have interesting theory about the BIG’s latest moves. I think the BIG is attacking the SEC’s strangle hold over college football.

1. Jim Delaney last winter encouraged all BIG schools to start offering 4 year scholarships. This is an assault on the SEC’s schools (not all as I think Florida and Georgia don’t) advantage in oversigning. If this becomes the standard, Alabama and LSU won’t be able to get rid of underclassmen who are not performing and replace them with new recruits so easily.

2. No longer scheduling FCS schools is not only to improve the BIG’s quality of schedule, but a response to the SEC. Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina were all ranked in the top 5 this year based on only beating themselves. None of them played a division 1 school out of conference until their rivalry game against the ACC the last week of the season, which all happen to be in their own state. The SEC also likes to schedule FCS schools late in the season to allow for defacto bye weeks to break up tough conference play, that the BIG currently grinds through.

3. Increasing to 9 or 10 conference games is great for television. It will definitely force the SEC to match especially if they want to get that extra tv money boost. Last Georgia and Alabama didn’t have to play a single ranked power in the other division. That helped in keeping loses down. Increasing the number of conference games will increase the chances of these schools meeting more often, thus increasing their loss total.

4. This isnt a football point as much as it is competition in expansion. Trying to add John Hopkins as a partial member would be great all around for the BIG, but is also a shot at the SEC. The SEC has been rumored by the Sportingnews to be pursuing UNC and Duke for three years now. One of the biggest hurdles the SEC faces is its academic reputation and the fact it doesn’t offer all the sports that UNC and Duke play in conference. Lacrosse, despite what some think, is of some importance to those schools. Adding JHU significantly adds to the academic prestige of the BIG even more and creates a very strong and appealing lacrosse league. In what will be a close decision for UNC either way, adding lacrosse could be that little bit that sways the university’s decision.

5. This is pure conjecture, but the news of FOX starting a competitor against ESPN is interesting for the BIG against the SEC. Espn are king makers in college sports, and for some sports in general. They actively promote some teams and stories over others. If the BIG goes to Fox, does that weaken Espns power in college football. Would the BIG take the initial hit in national recognition by going to Fox just to weaken ESPN in the long run? I think it might.

General comment to those on the Board espousing rotating pods: change the name to something better.

On the previous thread (or the one before that), someone complained that “pods” would never be accepted because they were too strange. Someone responded by saying that the “fans would be educated.”

The first step in “educating” the fans is to choose a name that is comfortable and familiar. I suggest forever dumping the word pods and just say rotating division (“RDs”).

Feel free to suggest other names.

the marketing for RDs is straightforward: every conference has divisions; the BIG has divisions; the NFL has divisions that are 4 teams; the B1G will have divisions that are 4 teams. So, it’s not strange and weird and the butt of jokes. Oh, and our divisions rotate; pretty cool that they rotate, huh? Yep, the B1G is innovative with its rotating divisions,

by contrast, “pods” sounds weird. Pod-people, drink pods, peas in a pod, pod rhymes with odd and no one wants to be odd. Pod is just an ugly sounding word. A doddering clod plodding along sees a nodding toddler on the sod while while drinking from a pod wearing a mod cod-piece made to look like a codfish which is really just a big wad of cash. The only pod that’s not odd is an iPod.

The problem now is how do you describe the two divisions. East-West doesn’t work because the two regions permanently assigned to a division are both in the eastern part of the country.. Names probably won’t work because someone would feel left out. Colors are possible (Black Division/White Division), but not very interesting.

I hate to do this, but–

The Leaders Division could have the Plains and Coastal Regions in Years 1 & 2 while the Legends has the Mid-West and Mid-East Regions.

In Years 3 & 4, the Leaders Division has the Plains and Mid-East Regions and the Legends as the Mid-west and Coastal Regions in it.

Plains / Coast play through in four years with 9 conference games, two years with 10 conference games, North/East plays through in five years with 9 conference games, to/three years with 10 conference games.

Massively unbalanced, but no way to make it not massively unbalanced without break up OSU/PSU. If it is assumed that the expansion is worth sufficient to drop OSU/PSU to once every three years, you can have:

If you have a ten-game conference schedule, a team like Michigan would play the four teams in its region (MSU, OSU, PSU, RU), the four teams in the other region (either Mid-West or Plains) and two from the Coastal Region (4-4-2). If you do a home and home for all these schools, that scenario has Michigan playing all the teams in the conference at least twice in a six-year period.

If the conference adopts a nine-game schedule, then its 4-4-1 and with no home-and-home for the Coastal Region schools, it would take five years to get through them. Now that would be problematic.

I do agree with you that the pod (regions) system is cleaner with 16 or 20 teams in four regions of four or five teams apiece. With 16 teams, a team could play each program in the conference a minimum of twice in four years with a home and home (and with 20, its twice in six year with a home-and-home). 18 doesn’t work as well.

If you scroll up, you’ll also see a discussion about having two pods of 6 and two pods of 3. The teams in the pods with 3 members would play each other annually in a fixed game while rotating between the two larger divisions. That’s certainly another way of doing it.

In the midst of all this discussion about pods for 16 or 18 or 20 teams, the one thing you have to keep an eye on is what’s happening to college athletics at large. We’ve written about the possibility whereby Division 1-A shrinks into a 64- to 80-team entity. At that point, we might be talking about four super conferences with two large fixed divisions apiece (of 8 to 10 teams each) as part of a structure to support an eight-team playoff (with the super conference championship game being the first round of the playoff). If that were to happen, all this discussion about pods or regions will become a thing of the past.

“You’ve got to switch it to 4 on both ends and five in the middle, because you have to put the Kings Group playing away to each East Coast team more frequently than once every decade.”

I’d restate that as the outside pods should be the same size and so should the middle pods. It doesn’t matter which is 4 and which is 5 for that purpose. You make the ends 4 because the western group of 4 works much better than any group of 5.

Lock OSU/MI, MSU/GT and PU/IN and play 8 division games. Games between the S and W rotate every year. You scramble the groups of 3 every two years (in order of locked games) so all of those teams play each other.

Scrambling the groups is driven there by having locked cross division games which is driven by putting MSU, TSUN and OSU in different groups. But its too tinkery. The benefit of the tick tock system is there are only two division lineups, so of all the rotating divisions, its the least confusing for normal people.

Break PSU from OSU, and we’re back to the 4/5/5/4 with the Illinois schools in the “North” and the Indiana schools in the “East”

After all, MSU wants to play That School Up North and Northwestern, Illinois wants to play Northwestern and OSU, OSU wants to play That School Up North and that School Up North wants to play OSU and MSU.

As far as strength of schedule and the easier path to the CCG for PennSt than for OSU and TSUN, no telling whether Purdue will go on an upward cycle and Rutgers will grow into a Prince. So long as there is one King in the 4 ACC newbies, its as well balanced as one can make a system looking at four incumbent kings and none of them in the South.

“Scrambling the groups is driven there by having locked cross division games which is driven by putting MSU, TSUN and OSU in different groups.”

It’s mostly driven by only playing 9 games in an 18 team conference. If I can use 10 games, I wouldn’t rotate the middle groups. They’d have 1 locked game and 1 rotating game, so they play everyone twice in 4 years.

“Break PSU from OSU, and we’re back to the 4/5/5/4 with the Illinois schools in the “North” and the Indiana schools in the “East””

No. Those groups never work well because you either split important rivalries or have terrible balance.

If the Big Ten adds six schools straight with no Kings, all from one side of the current conference footprint, you either accept some competitive imbalance or engage in geographic contortions that make the widely unpopular Leader vs Legends look geographically sensible by comparison.

If the Big Ten adds six schools straight with no Kings, all from one side of the current conference footprint, you either accept some competitive imbalance or engage in geographic contortions that make the widely unpopular Leader vs Legends look geographically sensible by comparison.

The ACC schools already agreed to be in a conference where they’d be traveling as far south as Miami, and as far north as Boston, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh, with occasional trips to South Bend. You can probably add Cincinnati and UConn to that list, next time the ACC has a vacancy. Even in the current Big Ten, most games are plane trips for the teams, and only a minority of them attract traveling fans who arrive by car in very substantial numbers.

Leaders/Legends was ridiculed because of the exceedingly dumb names and just one or two oddities that the fans disliked: splitting Iowa from Wisconsin and Minnesota; splitting Michigan and Ohio State. They also did themselves a disservice by insinuating that UM-OSU might be moved to an earlier date in the season. Though this never happened, the negative publicity created the impression that they didn’t give a damn about the fans.

Once you expand to 18 teams, a lot of the scheduling goals are in tension with one another. It’s a matter of choosing your poison. Travel, as an issue, is much overrated, as long as teams get the key rivalries they care about. The Big Ten has apparently decided not to go with the Inner/Outer alignment, but it was more about getting Michigan and Ohio State into the New York/Washington markets. The actual travel difference wouldn’t be huge, bearing in mind that with nine conference games, you play three opponents in the other division regardless of the alignment.

It also invites ridicule if a team is sent across the country for no good reason, e.g., a hypothetical pod of Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, and Purdue. I think they would try to avoid this.

I agree with you that the scheduling problems are far more acute if they go to 18 schools without FSU, as you get a cluster of schools in the same region, none of which are great at football. If you don’t break them up to some extent, you’re almost certain to end up with an intolerable competitive imbalance .

…no telling whether Purdue will go on an upward cycle and Rutgers will grow into a Prince

There is a pretty long history suggesting it’s improbable that both of those events will occur.

“If the Big Ten adds six schools straight with no Kings, all from one side of the current conference footprint, you either accept some competitive imbalance or engage in geographic contortions that make the widely unpopular Leader vs Legends look geographically sensible by comparison.”

That’s not some competitive imbalance, it’s a ridiculously large amount of it. Based on the last 10 years of conference play, you have 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 15, 16 vs 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18 by conference W%. Swap PSU and GT for MN and IL and you’d have a clean sweep.

It your realignment plan that makes no sense. I’m saying the B10 would be too smart to follow geography so strictly as to cause that embarrassment of a lineup to happen. If, on the other hand, you mean the additions ignoring balance, that makes no sense. It’s not who you add, it’s where you put them.

I agree completely and was thinking along the same lines. The worse thing the Big Ten could do is say we are using pods and these are it. It would sound better to most to say the divisions will rotate, but every team will have x teams it plays every year (and then list those teams).

They should just lock whichever rivalries they feel are necessary, and let the rest of the schedule rotate freely, according to whatever rotation rules are deemed useful.

Static pods (or groups, or quads) are unhelpful, because you wind up competitively unbalanced, or you invent extra rivalries that no one wants. There is no need to lock groups of four or five schools permanently together. The NE/WI/MN/IA quad works really well. But others are just made-up contrivances that have no basis in geography or history.

Everyone just assumes the B1G would do this, apparently for no other reason than because the WAC did it. Is there any reason, besides that? It seems that people are twisting themselves into the shape of a pretzel, to create a structure that no one needs, doesn’t work very well, and was a failure the one time it was tried.

<em“They should just lock whichever rivalries they feel are necessary, and let the rest of the schedule rotate freely, according to whatever rotation rules are deemed useful.”

Except for making it hard to obey the NCAA rules, that makes perfect sense.

It is trivially easy to rotate the schedule, without pods, while complying with the existing rules. All you need to do is have two divisions. No rule says that you need have static four- and five-team subdivisions within the divisions. That’s just one way of doing it.

“Static pods (or groups, or quads) are unhelpful,”

Wrong.

Oh, yeah? Show me a pod alignment that doesn’t have fictitious rivalries, and that doesn’t separate any rivals that actually want to be together.

“The NE/WI/MN/IA quad works really well. But others are just made-up contrivances that have no basis in geography or history.”

Yeah, UNC, UVA, Duke and MD have nothing in common. Why would anybody group them together?

I didn’t say none of the others work. But in every structure I’ve seen, you wind up with some teams arbitrarily thrown together, or historical rivals separated. Why do that, when you don’t have to?

“Everyone just assumes the B1G would do this,”

No they don’t. They discuss it because the B10 could do it and perhaps they think the B10 should do it. As usual, you’re the one making assumptions.

OK, correct me: what other ways are under discussion.

“Is there any reason, besides that?”

Frequency of play while following the current NCAA rules to allow a 13th game exemption for the CCG.

As I said, pods aren’t required to follow the rule [assuming, for argument’s sake, that they couldn’t just get the rule changed].

“Its trivially easy to rotate the schedule” ~ the thing is that if you have a collection of locked games for each school and a round robin schedule, a lot of of the schedule rotations fall off the list of feasible choices.

As far the claim of it being trivially easy ~ that’s a bit of handwaving, isn’t it? Give a demonstration of the first four years of the division rotation, and how they respect all Big Ten rivalries and offer so much better divisional balance and make so much more geographic sense than eastern and western anchor groups and two central groups alternating between the two.

This is just a possible list. Arguments could be made for protecting more or fewer games than that. This is just an illustration. Within the “classic Big Ten,” I didn’t protect any game if that game has been unprotected at any point within the last 20 years. I didn’t protect MD with the rest of the ACC, because they’ve already decided to give that up. But I did give each school at least one guaranteed annual game. Some have two.

2) Now, it is not a difficult combinatorial problem to generate two divisions that protect every one of these rivalries. There are many, many solutions. Brian could probably tell us exactly how many. He is good at that.

With 9 conference games, every rival needs to be in the same division. With 10 conference games, a team can be in the opposite division as one of their rivals, since every team will have an opposite-division flex game. If you’re separated from your rival, that’s the flex game; otherwise, the flex game can be any opponent.

You can also impose constraints, such as: “No more than 4 kings in a division” (the kings being UM, OSU, PSU, NE, FSU, and ND). Even with that constraint, there are many solutions.

So anyway, you generate divisions with those constraints. A year later, they rotate to another combination using the same algorithm, mixing up the schools as much as possible while retaining the rivalries. These divisions can be generated as long in advance as you want. [On another thread, I suggested generating them dynamically, based on performance the preceding season. That is not at all necessary, but it is one available option.]

The advantage of this, is that you protect exactly what is wanted, and no more. You don’t, for instance, create an artificial “Purdue-Maryland” annual game that no one wants, just because you needed a five-team pod.

To give but one example of the many possible rotations, the first divisions could be:

In that rotation, everyone plays everyone at least once in three or six years, with no rivalries broken. It can rotate annually, or bi-annually, as wanted. The above examples work with 9 conference games. With 10 conference games, many more divisions are possible, since rivals can be split.

If you prefer settled scheduling, the rotation can be announced as many years in advance as you’d like. It could also be adjusted dynamically according to performance (my preference, but not at all necessary).

“It is trivially easy to rotate the schedule, without pods, while complying with the existing rules. All you need to do is have two divisions. No rule says that you need have static four- and five-team subdivisions within the divisions. That’s just one way of doing it.”

I never said you had to have static pods to do it. Your way is so trivial that you have yet to even show that it works when preserving all the appropriate games. I haven’t said it won’t work, but it will be harder on the scheduler. What is the rotation? What is the frequency of games for each pairing?

“Oh, yeah? Show me a pod alignment that doesn’t have fictitious rivalries, and that doesn’t separate any rivals that actually want to be together.”

That’s impossible. Many fan bases disagree on which are real rivalries and which aren’t. I’ve given multiple pod examples that preserve all the necessary games. You’ve failed to show a problem with someone having an annual game against a team they aren’t rivals with yet.

“I didn’t say none of the others work. But in every structure I’ve seen, you wind up with some teams arbitrarily thrown together,”

You mean like NW/PU and MSU/PSU? Those are from the days of 11 teams and no divisions, but needed to make scheduling easier. We have them now with 12. Guess what? You’ll have them at 14, too.

“OK, correct me: what other ways are under discussion.”

Just recently? Changing the NCAA rule to go with no divisions, static divisions and various sizes and types of pods have all been discussed. Richard always has his 6 pods of 3 plan for 18 teams, too.

Sure arguments COULD be made “for protecting more or fewer”, but you didn’t actually present the argument for protecting so few. I presume the actual argument for not even protecting all of the old traditional rivalries in the conference, never mind the games that are really appealing as travel partners is that the more rivalries you protect ~ and the more actual demonstrated benefit of doing the scheduling that way instead of with groups ~ the harder it is to draw up the divisions.

Your way is so trivial that you have yet to even show that it works when preserving all the appropriate games.

I did it above. About three FTT blog posts ago, I did another. I could give a third, fourth, fifth; as many as you want.

I haven’t said it won’t work, but it will be harder on the scheduler.

The scheduler is a Big Ten employee. He is well paid to do this. We’re all tossing this stuff out in our spare time, by some definition. If I make it your job, you’ll do better (I assume).

“Oh, yeah? Show me a pod alignment that doesn’t have fictitious rivalries, and that doesn’t separate any rivals that actually want to be together.”

That’s impossible.

You can come a good deal closer than your last attempt. Eliminate all of the fictitious rivalries. Protect whatever you define as necessary.

You’ve failed to show a problem with someone having an annual game against a team they aren’t rivals with yet.

Opportunity cost. Since we clearly can’t preserve everything, every fictitious rivalry you create, carries the cost of multiple desired games that can’t be played. That’s why it’s better to protect no more than necessary — given whatever definition of “necessary” you want.

Of course I agree that fans will not have the same view of what is “necessary”. But I assume you’d agree that an annual Michigan State/Georgia Tech rivalry (which I believe was part of your scenario) is “necessary” by no rational definition. By protecting it, other Big Ten teams and the Yellowjackets see each other less often.

Why protect a game that no fan of either school has agitated for, when others they want are left unplayed for years at a time?

“I didn’t say none of the others work. But in every structure I’ve seen, you wind up with some teams arbitrarily thrown together,”

You mean like NW/PU and MSU/PSU?

That’s a system no longer in use. There were a lot of jokes about that made-up MSU/PSU rivalry. What was so great about that system, that would make you eager to return to it?

Of course, those were simpler times: you saw 80 percent of your conference mates every year, and no team was off your schedule for more than two years at a time. Then, they’d be back again for at the next eight years or so. With a 20-team Big Ten, inefficiencies like that are far more costly.

This is just a possible list. Arguments could be made for protecting more or fewer games than that. This is just an illustration.”

It’s a ridiculously minimalist list that even you know is crap. Every team would have at least 2 and many need 3. Some might need 4.

“2) Now, it is not a difficult combinatorial problem to generate two divisions that protect every one of these rivalries.”

It becomes harder when you have a more realistic list.

“There are many, many solutions. Brian could probably tell us exactly how many. He is good at that.”

Count them yourself. It’s an important part of your argument to show how this plan works.

“The advantage of this, is that you protect exactly what is wanted, and no more. You don’t, for instance, create an artificial “Purdue-Maryland” annual game that no one wants, just because you needed a five-team pod.”

And the harm in PU playing MD annually would be what?

“To give but one example of the many possible rotations, the first divisions could be:

Sure arguments COULD be made “for protecting more or fewer”, but you didn’t actually present the argument for protecting so few. I presume the actual argument for not even protecting all of the old traditional rivalries in the conference, never mind the games that are really appealing as travel partners is that the more rivalries you protect ~ and the more actual demonstrated benefit of doing the scheduling that way instead of with groups ~ the harder it is to draw up the divisions.

You’re absolutely correct that it is possible to so tightly constrain the problem that an acceptable rotation becomes impossible.

But even in the system they’re considering NOW (with East-West), UM-MN and OSU-IL are not going to be protected. They were also not protected in the scheduling system before Nebraska joined.

Now, I think it’s obvious that if some rivalries had to be sacrificed in an 11 or 14-team Big Ten, they surely will have to be in a 20-team Big Ten. As I said in my post, if a particular rivalry has not been protected historically (the last 20 years or so), then it’s hard to make the argument that it is essential in a 20-team league.

But it is clearly possible to give each school their one or two “must haves”. And if you can do that, why wouldn’t you? In a 20-team league, I am not sure you can give anyone three or four annual rivals, without someone else making a larger sacrifice.

Likewise, it seems apparent that if you give schools a “made-up” rivalry, you are creating an extra scheduling constraint that no one really wants, and in so doing, taking away flexibility for other useful games to take place.

This is just a possible list. Arguments could be made for protecting more or fewer games than that. This is just an illustration.”

It’s a ridiculously minimalist list that even you know is crap. Every team would have at least 2 and many need 3. Some might need 4.

I believe most of what I left unprotected, has been unprotected at some point in one of the recently employed systems. If they were willing to leave it unplayed some years in an 11, 12, or 14-team Big Ten, how can it suddenly be essential in a 20-team Big Ten?

I think the only exception is that I didn’t protect PSU/OSU, but I think in your proposal you didn’t protect it either.

Just for fun, rewrite your own proposal without fictitious rivalries, but protect whatever you want to protect. If you want to max-protect, go ahead, but don’t protect anything unless you need it. Now see how much more the rest of the conference gets to play each other, because, e.g., Georgia Tech isn’t locked into Michigan State every year.

All I am really saying is, don’t protect more than you need to, so that the remaining teams get to play each other more often.

Any scheme where the game for the pig or the game for the Jug or even Iowa-Wisconsin or even UNL-Wisconsin (which, according to Alvarez is a high-priority series for UW nowadays) or even OSU-PSU (without Pitt joining and taking the place of OSU) or UMD-UVa are not protected is not a realistic list. MSU also wants to visit Chicagoland very often as well.

Ironically, Duke & UVa do not have to play annually. I have no idea why you threw that in there.

@Brian: Every team would have at least 2 and many need 3. Some might need 4.

Umm….why? Georgia Tech and FSU’s rivalries, both with each other and with the rest of the ACC, are fairly recently minted. Maryland was prepared to give up 100 percent of its ACC rivalries to join the Big Ten.

Penn State and Nebraska had no annual rivalries with any Big Ten teams before joining the league. During the long period of an 11-team Big Ten, no team had more than two protected rivalries. Some of those were highly meaningful (UM-OSU), but some were just made-up, so that every team would have two. You know that PSU-MSU wasn’t that important, because as soon as Nebraska joined, they kicked it to the curb.

“I believe most of what I left unprotected, has been unprotected at some point in one of the recently employed systems.”

Floyd. The game for Floyd has been played continuously since the Great Depression.

Just wondering, are you a Nebraska, UMD, or Rutgers fan?

“All I am really saying is, don’t protect more than you need to, so that the remaining teams get to play each other more often.”

Have you thought this through? With 10 conference games in a 20 school league, protecting 2 games and rotating the rest means you face the non-protected schools 8/17th of the time. Protecting 3 games and rotating the rest means you face the non-protected schools 7/16th of the time. That’s a 3.3% increase in frequency. That’s 1 extra game vs. each non-protected school every 30 years, or one extra HaH series every 60 years. If you think that’s worth killing off the oldest trophy game either (the LBJ game) as well as a bunch of lesser rivalries, you need your priorities examined.

Probably not. On the other hand, teams regularly play a lot of conference games against teams they don’t care about.

“Eliminate all of the fictitious rivalries. Protect whatever you define as necessary.”

I hereby define I all the games I locked as necessary. Problem solved.

“Opportunity cost. Since we clearly can’t preserve everything, every fictitious rivalry you create, carries the cost of multiple desired games that can’t be played.”

And yet you’ve failed to produce a viable list of all these desired games that are being lost and how much more valuable they are than the “unwanted” locked teams. Most schools don’t really care who fills out their schedule beyond a certain set of teams. That reduces the opportunity cost.

“Of course I agree that fans will not have the same view of what is “necessary”. But I assume you’d agree that an annual Michigan State/Georgia Tech rivalry (which I believe was part of your scenario) is “necessary” by no rational definition. By protecting it, other Big Ten teams and the Yellowjackets see each other less often.”

Actually, it was mathematically necessary. That’s as rational as it gets. I had OSU/MI and IN/PU locked to preserve important rivalries. That left MSU and GT to play each other. That locked game could go away with 10 conference games. Or maybe it stays because MSU wants GA access for recruiting and GT has limited interest in IN or PU.

As for other teams seeing GT less because of MSU/GT, that only applies to OSU, MI, IN and PU. I think they’d rather keep their major rivalries locked than play GT more often. The other 12 teams would get them 50% of the time.

“Why protect a game that no fan of either school has agitated for, when others they want are left unplayed for years at a time?”

Again, what are all these neglected games that fans want that my system ignored?

“That’s a system no longer in use.”

Nice reply from Mr. “If it’s never been done before it’s a ridiculous idea and not worth discussing.” Now past methods are also no longer worthy of discussion. Way to limit any disagreement.

“There were a lot of jokes about that made-up MSU/PSU rivalry. What was so great about that system, that would make you eager to return to it?”

It preserved the major rivalries and gave an equal rotation through the other 8 teams.

“You’re absolutely correct that it is possible to so tightly constrain the problem that an acceptable rotation becomes impossible.

But even in the system they’re considering NOW (with East-West), UM-MN and OSU-IL are not going to be protected. They were also not protected in the scheduling system before Nebraska joined.”

But in the scheduling system before Nebraska joined, the schools in the conference played most of the conference most of the time.

And if your point is that your system is no WORSE in protecting rivalries than static divisions or alternating groups … then why go with your system? Static divisions are simpler, alternating groups are simpler. Static divisions are simplest, at the cost of not seeing half the conference very often, alternating groups are not as simple, for the gain of seeing the majority of the conference every two years.

If it can be BETTER at protecting the fabric of rivalries that have grown up over the past century and half century, then you’ve got a case for living with the downsides of your system.

@Richard: Ironically, Duke & UVa do not have to play annually. I have no idea why you threw that in there.

It was really just an illustration. I’m more trying to ask, “Why protect extra games annually that no one has asked for?” The actual set that’s necessary to protect is less meaningful; we all have different opinions on that.

But it is useful to have a sense of history: there were four years that Michigan and Minnesota didn’t play, between Penn State’s entry to the league and the current divisional set-up. And in the proposed east-west set-up, it appears they’ll again go some years without playing.

But if teams have to give up their second or third or fourth most desired games … how is that fundamentally any different from forming divisions from rotating or alternating groups that also can only respect two to four out of most team’s desired collections of games?

At least with alternating or rotating groups, there is certainty that you’ll get to play the others in your group on an ongoing basis.

And that is shifting the goalposts mid-post. You say “why protect games nobody has asked for”. MSU has asked for NW, MN has asked for TSUN, IL has asked for OSU, the four western schools have asked to play each other, Penn State got the two east coast entrants THEY asked for, so I will treat that as asking for those games.

How ESSENTIAL? Well, obviously there are different priorities, some games are more important to one school than the other, and sometimes in a conference you can’t get what you want so you make the best of what you can get.

Lots of systems can protect a small number of “essential” games, especially when leeway is granted to dictate to schools an arbitrary cut-off of how “essential” their preferred games are to protect. If THAT’S all that the system can offer, its doesn’t seem to be offering very much.

And that is shifting the goalposts mid-post. You say “why protect games nobody has asked for”. MSU has asked for NW, MN has asked for TSUN, IL has asked for OSU, the four western schools have asked to play each other, Penn State got the two east coast entrants THEY asked for, so I will treat that as asking for those games.

How ESSENTIAL? Well, obviously there are different priorities, some games are more important to one school than the other, and sometimes in a conference you can’t get what you want so you make the best of what you can get.

This is what makes Purdue to the West/Michigan State to the East a preferable setup in terms of keeping members satisfied — protecting not only the Old Oaken Bucket, but the Little Brown Jug, Illiniwek, MSU-Northwestern (these first four as crossovers) and the Purdue-Illinois game (in the West division). You can legitimately argue that it lessens divisional balance, but if more members are happy, it would override that disadvantage. And while you can’t assume this is a short-term move, there’s a reasonably good chance (thanks to the upcoming TV deal) that before the 2010s are up, the Big Ten will have more than 14 football-playing teams.

(P.S. The first time I saw the term “TSUN,” I thought someone had misspelled the acronym for Cal State Northridge. Oh, you crazy Buckeyes.)

And that is shifting the goalposts mid-post. You say “why protect games nobody has asked for”. MSU has asked for NW, MN has asked for TSUN, IL has asked for OSU, the four western schools have asked to play each other, Penn State got the two east coast entrants THEY asked for, so I will treat that as asking for those games.

Shifting the goalposts…how? Everyone agrees that it’s impossible to preserve every desired rivalry annually. Even the current system fails to do that, and it only gets harder when you add teams.

It therefore seems to me rather obvious, that you shouldn’t gum up the system with unsought locked rivalries, because that’s fewer slots available for the games the schools really want.

Beyond that, I am not advocating a particular number of rivalries to protect. My idea is about the opposite kinds of games — those no sane person would believe need to be locked, like GT/MSU or Purdue/Maryland.

“protecting not only the Old Oaken Bucket, but the Little Brown Jug, Illiniwek, MSU-Northwestern (these first four as crossovers) and the Purdue-Illinois game (in the West division).”

It’s a big assumption that the B10 will choose to lock a bunch of crossover games. We know they’ll have to lock 1. It’s unclear that they’ll lock more than that. Limiting everyone to 1 rotating game really reduces how often teams can play. If only IN/PU gets locked in your version, then how do you feel about it?

“You can legitimately argue that it lessens divisional balance, but if more members are happy, it would override that disadvantage.”

But will more teams be happy? That hasn’t been shown. We’ve yet to hear who prefers PU in the west and who prefers MSU in the west. We can guess, but we may well be wrong. If it’s split 7/7 or 8/6 or maybe even 9/5, doesn’t it matter how much they care more than how many prefer 1 over the other?

Pods is a term the NCAA uses in the tourney. But terminology doesn’t matter here. Call them whatever you want for PR. For practical use, though, pods is the accepted term when discussing the issue on the internet. Pods are just a means to an end and the B10 never needs to talk about them publicly. They can just discuss having dynamic divisions are whatever BS term makes you feel better about yourself.

@ Brian: You said: “Pods is a term the NCAA uses in the tourney. But terminology doesn’t matter here. Call them whatever you want for PR. For practical use, though, pods is the accepted term when discussing the issue on the internet. Pods are just a means to an end and the B10 never needs to talk about them publicly. They can just discuss having dynamic divisions are whatever BS term makes you feel better about yourself.”

My, you were in a foul mood yesterday. I hope you got a good night’s sleep and are less cranky and irritable today.

You say “terminology doesn’t matter.” I disagree. “Leaders” and “Legends” are good examples of bad names. “Edsel” is another classic example of a bad name. The Chevy “Nova” was shunned by Spanish speaking consumers because “No va” in Spanish means “it does not run.”

Naming matters. The “Rose Bowl” sounds wonderful; the “Broccoli Bowl” not so much.

You say that the NCAA uses the term “pods.” First, I’ve never heard the term “pods” used by the NCAA. But, whatever. Second, I still think “pods” is a bad name even if the NCAA has used the term. Just because it has been done, doesn’t mean it needs to continue. Dead hand of the past begone !

You also say that “pods is an accepted term.” I did not say otherwise. If it makes you feel better about yourself to limit yourself to the “accepted term,” feel free. My post was an attempt to suggest that the “accepted term” has limitations and that there are better alternatives.

You say finally: “They [the B1G] can just discuss having dynamic divisions are whatever BS term makes you feel better about yourself.” (I assume “are” = “or”). As should be clear, the name matters and is not “BS.”

No, I said it doesn’t matter here, as in on Frank’s blog. That word is kind of important to the meaning of my sentence. PR experts can decide on the proper term if and when the B10 decided to use them.

“You say that the NCAA uses the term “pods.””

They do. It’s their fairly new method of grouping schools for the first 2 rounds to reduce travel.

I know I am in the minority among Irish fans; but I hate the animosity between the B1G and the Irish. For the most part its been a fun struggle through the years, I love the Michigan St series as well as the Michigan series these past few years. I understand the sentiment and angst by some in the fan bases on each side; but College Football is better as a whole when Notre Dame and Michigan/Michigan St are playing. This is sad to me.

@OrderRestored83: As far as I can tell, all three of Notre Dame’s regular rivals in the Big Ten wanted to keep playing Notre Dame. It’s true that some (sadly ignorant) fans say, “To Hell with Notre Dame.” But that attitude is not shared by the athletic directors.

It was Jack Swarbrick’s decision to cancel the Michigan series.

His apparent reasoning was that if he plays annual series with Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Navy, Stanford, and USC, that locks six games a year. The ACC league office is going to determine five other games, for a total of eleven. That would leave him with just one game a year under his control. He wanted more flexibility than that.

Yeah, as of now it sounds like the MSU and Purdue games will continue; but for how much longer? As for the Michigan series ending, regardless of whose decision it was; it was a bad one for the game. I went to both Michigan/ND games and the atmosphere was only rivaled by games against ‘SC. College Football needs that. I was outspoken against the partnership with the ACC; I don’t feel a connection to any of those schools (and could care less about playing any of them outside BC/Miami/Florida St). Who knows where this will end up; but games like Michigan/Notre Dame shouldn’t be sacrificed in the process.

@OrderRestored83: My guess is that Swarbrick will keep the Purdue series, no matter what. They’re Notre Dame’s third most-frequent rival (after Navy and USC), and they have a better winning percentage against Purdue than either MSU or Michigan.

Michigan State’s AD said last month that they would continue to play Notre Dame but probably only 4 of 6 years instead of the previous 8 of 10. Both schools want to schedule other rivals periodically. By the way, the cancellation of the Michigan vs ND series had been rumored for well over a year. No big surprise, other than maybe the way Swarbrick delivered the message to Brandon.

Once I saw that Notre Dame had agreed to a four-year series with Texas that included season opening games in 2015/6, I thought the UM-ND series was potentially on the ropes. If the Irish had kept the Wolverines on the schedule, the first two games for those seasons would have been UT followed by UM. That’s not smart scheduling for any college football team.

Brandon was asked about the Notre Dame series cancellation in the following article from 25 September 2012–http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2012/09/dave_brandon_explains_notre_da.html

While Brandon says he wasn’t surprised that Notre Dame wanted to opt out of the contract after they joined the ACC, he did say that Swarbrick never contacted him about ending the series in the immediate aftermath of that decision (announced on 12 September). The first formal notice he had was when Swarbrick handed him the opt out letter before last season’s game.

Brandon also said he didn’t realize the 2012 games was going to count as part of the three-game notice until after it was over and he was headed back to Ann Arbor and pulled the letter out of his pocket. Until that point, I think he assumed the 2015 game was still on the schedule.

@Marc Shepherd – I wouldn’t say “To Hell with Notre Dame”, but as a Michigan alum and fan, I was happy to see the series end. My freshman year in Ann Arbor was 1978–the same year the UM/ND series was resurrected. That game was pretty much a “don’t miss” game for years after I graduated because the series was so great.

The problem is that when Penn State came into the conference, the 85-scholarship limit was introduced and a half dozen years after that, the BCS came into being. All that meant that a non-conference schedule with three pretty good opponents went down to one, and that one was Notre Dame.

At that point, I wanted to see some more variety in Michigan’s non-conference schedule when it came to the one major home-and-home series the Wolverines played. I didn’t want ND completely off the schedule, but it would have been fine if they were part of a rotation (maybe 2 years out of every 6 or 8) with some of the other major college football powers. That really hit home when I attended the 2005 (?) Rose Bowl in person against Texas. Here was a team that Michigan had never played before meeting for the first time (for the record, UM hasn’t played LSU either). It was a great game and an even better experience and it whet my appetite for non-conference games against the other major programs in the country.

We’re in early days yet on the non-conference scheduling as far Michigan is concerned because there was supposed to be an agreement with the Pac 12, then it ended, now we’re looking at 9 or 10 conference games, etc. UM does have a home-and-home set with Arkansas–that’s okay, but not really a ND comparable opponent like Oklahoma or Florida State or USC.

Who knows? If Notre Dame joins the Big Ten Conference as part of a 18- or 20-team setup, those games with Michigan and Michigan State could become annual affairs again. As far as I’m concerned, having ND as a regular conference opponent would be just fine.

BTW, Bo Schembechler was prepared to end the ND series in the very earlier 90s, but he left the AD job before he was able to change anything. I have it on good authority that Bill Martin considered it as well. Not all of Michigan’s AD’s in recent times have been in love with Notre Dame, and seeing that Jack Swarbrick didn’t give David Brandon a head’s up regarding the ending of the series before he handed him that letter right before last season’s game, I imagine he isn’t in love with them right now either.

@cutter: You may have better contacts at Michigan than I do. But you can count up the number of ADs at Michigan since 1978. If they disliked the series that much, why did they keep renewing it?

I don’t know what Dave Brandon thinks of Jack Swarbrick now, but he sure sounded disappointed when he was handed that letter—not merely by the way in which it was done, but also the fact that the series was ending. Up to that point, I saw no inkling that he wanted to end it.

I honestly thought a fairly large portion of the M crowd was very disrespectful to ND. They are 2 very different places. Might be the same the other way around as well, but I was closer to the M crowd.

Just an addendum on this point: it’s hard to schedule OOC opponents of Notre Dame’s stature. You can look up the one or two-dozen [we could dispute precisely how many there are] potential marquee opponents, and look up their availability. Michigan isn’t the only school trying to schedule them.

Brandon just hooked Arkansas for 2018-19, after being turned down (reportedly) by a number of others. [We’ll assume for argument’s sake that Arkansas is of comparable stature to Notre Dame, which they really aren’t.] An additional problem is that a lot of the potential marquee opponents are in the south, and a hot-weather September game in their stadiums would put Michigan at a rather considerable disadvantage.

Some Michigan fans got tired of Notre Dame, but the rivalry produced a very large number of iconic games, including three of the last four years. (I am considering them iconic not just because they were Michigan wins, but how they were won; some of the ND wins fit that description too.)

I’m not saying I don’t want variety in the schedule, because I do. I am just pointing out that it’s easier said than done.

A lot of Michigan’s scheduling problems are their own fault though. About a year ago Brandon said that Michigan would no longer play any road OOC games besides ND and it had a major effect on their future schedule.

He has since reversed it (obviously) but it takes time to catch up. Similar schools like Texas, USC and OSU have games scheduled out as far as 10 years.

@frug: You are entirely correct, although the problem pre-dates Brandon; Bill Martin scheduled a bunch of cupcakes, too. My comment was really addressing the people who think Notre Dame can easily be replaced on the schedule with comparable opponents; they can’t.

This year, for instance, Ohio State’s OOC opponents are Buffalo, San Diego State, Buffalo, and the return game at Cal — and the Buckeyes have been scheduling up for a while now. I assume Cal was the best they could do, and although they’re not chopped liver, they’re not Notre Dame.

The Buckeyes’ future home & homes are Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, North Carolina, TCU, Oregon, Boston College, and Texas. A few of those are clearly of Notre Dame’s stature, but several are not.

Don Canham was responsible for getting the Michigan-Notre Dame series back on the calendar. He contacted ND in 1969 and the first game played was in 1978.

Canham was replaced by Schembechler, who as I mentioned earlier, nearly cancelled the series during his tenure from 1988-90. Bo always wanted that ND game to be the mutual season opener for both teams, but Notre Dame began scheduling games prior to playing Michigan after Holtz got there. If Bo had stayed on as AD longer, the series may have ended in the early 1990s.

His successor, Jack Weidenbach, was only there for two years, but he did two things. The first was to change Michigan’s schedule so that UM would have a game in hand when they played ND. The second was to contact his counterpart at Notre Dame and get a scheduling agreement in place that would make UM-ND the season opener again. That was the plan for 1998 and 1999.

Joe Roberson was the next UM AD, but he was only there for four years (two of which included a break in the ND series) before he was replaced by Thomas Goss (1997-2000). As we both know, Goss was fired for mismanagement of the athletic department. But something interesting happened on his watch.

In 1999, Michigan and Notre Dame were scheduled to play one another in Ann Arbor in what was supposed to be the two teams’ season opener (like it was in 1998). What ND did, however, was play Kansas in the Eddie Robinson Classic a week earlier (28 August) in what was clearly a prep game for Michigan. Lloyd Carr made a public statement about ND breaking a “gentleman’s agreement”, but never elaborated on it. I asked Carr about that at a charity event years later and he told me that ND “conveniently forgot” the agreement that Weidenbach had made with ND in early 90s. Let’s just say he wasn’t real happy about that, and to no surprise, Michigan has never again tried to open the season with Notre Dame. UM has always put at least one warm up game on the schedule before playing the Irish.

Bill Martin considered cancelling the series late in his tenure, but held off because he was leaving as AD and was going to let Brandon make the decision for keeping it or not. I never got a good feel for why he was considering it, but Brandon made it very clear in public that he wasn’t happy with having Notre Dame, Nebraska and Ohio State on the schedule as either all road game or all home games. ND wouldn’t budge because they wanted to play Michigan in South Bend when they played USC in LA and vice versa. I don’t know if Brandon was working with the B1G on getting the conference schedule changed, but happily for him, Notre Dame solved the problem by joining the ACC and cancelling the series.

To be completely frank, neither school needs the other. They didn’t play one another from 1910 through 1978 with two exceptions–games in 1942/3 during World War II. Both of them are big time programs that have profitable athletic departments, recognizable and marketable brands, lots of loyal fans,etc. As far as any future scheduling between the two programs, it’s clearly not in Notre Dame’s immediate future and it may not be in Michigan’s either. The B1G is going to at least a nine-game conference schedule, and if the decision is to make it ten, I don’t know if there’d be much opportunity for such a game. The conference is also looking at expanding, and how that works out along with the way the playoff system is finally set will also effect on Michigan sets up its non conference games.

Nebraska accepted the Big Ten’s invitation on June 12, 2010 and became a conference member on July 1, 2011. See–http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5276551

It’s a theoretically possible scenario. Outside of the exit fee, I don’t believe there are any other requirements for programs to leave the ACC, such as a waiting period.

If the ACC-Maryland lawsuit is settled in three or four months and schools are still willing to move in the wake of the settlement, then precedent shows that additional schools could be integrated into the Big Ten in time for the 2014 football season.

Goodness knows that Delany will have had plenty of time to vet the candidate schools, gauge their interest and gather the opinions and address the concerns of the COP/C and ADs these past months and through the last spring/early summer in order to quickly make a decision.

Notre Dame announced it was joining the ACC on 12 September last year. Maryland and Rutgers joined the Big Ten a little over two months later. If the conference is prepared to issue and accept invitations like I imagine they will be, the whole process could happen even faster than that.

He was a mediocre coach, but he has been covering the league regularly for several years and has contacts the rest of us could only dream about. He could be wrong, but I’d say he is manny degrees more reliable than the two West Virginia tweeps.

(JHU is Division III in every sport except lacrosse. Moving up to Division I would be an arduous process, in which they’d get clobbered for years and would have no value to the Big Ten. That’s to say nothing of the expense, given what I have to assume are highly sub-standard facilities by Division I standards.)

It’s not an exception if they join the B1G in all sports. Raising the other sports to D1 eliminates both the minimum number requirement and the associate member concern. What am I missing? How is this a problem, assuming their distribution is at a level commensurate with their contribution (academics consideration included)?

I really don’t take this story seriously…although when the NCAA was debating the grandfathering rule, there was talk JHU would move its other teams to Div I if it was otherwise not allowed to play Div I lacrosse. (Had that happened, though, Hopkins probably would have joined the Patriot League, not the Big Ten.)

@ccrider55: It’s not an exception if they join the B1G in all sports. Raising the other sports to D1 eliminates both the minimum number requirement and the associate member concern. What am I missing? How is this a problem…?

Raising the other sports to D1 would be very expensive and would take years. People complain when Big Ten teams play FCS squads, in games that are usually not even close to competitive (Appalachian State vs. Michigan aside). Hopkins plays two full levels below FCS. Their football stadium seats 8,500. Their basketball gym seats 1,100. Against any Division I team, they’d get slaughtered.

“It’s not an exception if they join the B1G in all sports. Raising the other sports to D1 eliminates both the minimum number requirement and the associate member concern. What am I missing?”

I responded to frug saying they would park the other sports in another D-I conference.

“How is this a problem, assuming their distribution is at a level commensurate with their contribution (academics consideration included)?”

Bringing a bunch of terrible teams to the B10 is a problem. B10 teams all get paid the same amount, and JHU couldn’t possibly earn their share. Or are you claiming they’d get paid nothing from FB and hoops money? Would they buy into the BTN? How would they get paid from it?

Perhaps compensate JHU FB along the lines of what currently is being paid for weak “buy” games (maybe with a requirement of a percentage going to improvements)? I don’t know. But do you think Chicago would have been kicked out if, rather than choosing to drop down, it said it would begin rebuilding over time?

“But do you think Chicago would have been kicked out if, rather than choosing to drop down, it said it would begin rebuilding over time?”

Back then, no. Look how long they let NW suck. But nowadays, yes. Can you imagine giving an equal annual split to a team that make IN look like a FB king and PSU like a hoops king? Chicago would just be stealing money. I think they would be required by the B10 to put much of their conference payout directly into serious attempts to get competitive or face getting the boot.

“I think they would be required by the B10 to put much of their conference payout directly into serious attempts to get competitive… ”

I think that is what I was suggesting for JHU, except using what is currently being paid for FB cupcake games as a starting point (rather than trying to discover what is not discoverable – the value JHU would bring to B1G FB).

The Big Ten isn’t going to give them a full distribution (or anything near that) unless they generate enough economic value. The conference already has the state’s flagship school (Maryland), and it would be many years before JHU’s other teams were competitive against Division I talent. I don’t know the precedents for making the leap from Division III to Division I, but I imagine it is an arduous climb. A basketball game like Johns Hopkins at Indiana would probably be really, really ugly.

Note that if you don’t count FL and TX, there are actually more NFL players from the 14-school B10 footprint than the SEC footprint (467 vs. 431). Just FL+TX produced 457, however (though the SEC certainly doesn’t get the vast bulk of TX football players). If anything, this shows how desirable FSU should be (Miami as well if they weren’t going to be underwater before I die).

Barely a difference, and even if you exclude TX & FL, the SEC has to share the talent-rich states of GA & SC with schools from other major conferences while the B10 shares only PA & IA (and no one has ever accused IA of being loaded in football-talent).

Halve the numbers for GA, SC, PA, & IA, and you get
427/14=30.5
349.5/12= 29.125

It’s pretty clear to me that the SEC advantage in talent can be explained by (besides more emphasis and money spent on recruiting) the proximity of most SEC schools to FL & TX.

Lots of preserved rivalries, plus highly desirable access to Chicago/IL for the western teams who have large fan/alumni bases there.

Unneeded games – IL doesn’t care much about the western 4 AFAIK with the possible exception of IA. They’d rather play OSU and MI.

Missing games – MI/MN, OSU/IL, MSU/NW

2. E – PSU, RU, MD, UVA, UNC, Duke

Again, many preserved rivalries plus eastern partners for PSU.

Unneeded games – RU against UVA and UNC, PSU versus UVA, UNC and Duke

Missing games – PSU/OSU

3. C1 – OSU, GT, PU; C2 – MI, MSU, IN; OSU/MI and PU/IN locked

Rivalries preserved.

Unneeded games – GT against everyone, OSU/PU, MI/IN, MSU/IN

Missing games – MI/MN, OSU/IL, MSU/NW, GT/UVA

Conclusions
All the missing games would be played 50% of the time. With 10 games, all games would be played at least 33% of the time. Everything except W versus E would be 50% or 100%. It’s not perfect, but it’s not terrible.

You really can’t make clean divisions despite his claims. Something has to give, just as it does with pods or any other system. The main difference is that pods focus on local rivalries and are easier to understand in many ways. It means the western schools play each other a lot and the eastern school less often (and vice versa). If everyone had the same number of fixed games, it would be simpler conceptually but hard to form divisions. I fail to see this as a panacea. The old system with no divisions would accomplish \what he wants, but requires a rule change obviously.

Frequency of play

This is the great opportunity cost Marc was worried about, so let’s examine it.

Everyone has 4 locked games as part of Marc’s scheme (they all have the same number for ease of math):
4 – 100%
13 – 38% or 46% (9 or 10 games)

The differences are bigger here. Again, the pod of 6 teams get to play the nearest teams the most but now there games against the farthest teams are fairly rare (1 in 6 years). The pod of 3 teams actually can’t play each other. That’s why you implement a rotation of those groups of 3.

The easy part is to swap IN and PU every two years (off cycle from when the pods of 3 trade divisions, ideally). That would knock IN/OSU, IN/GT, PU/MI and PU/MSU off the list as they get played. That leaves OSU/MSU and MI/GT. The fix for that is swapping OSU and IN, and then GT for IN/PU.

I would swap annually, but this is another one of the Big Ten’s traditions, which some would claim is essential, and others would not. Historically, the schedule has always rotated in two-year increments, I don’t know how far back it goes, but it’s at least 20 years.

I suppose the idea is that if Georgia Tech comes in and beats you, you want the opportunity for revenge the following year, and vice versa.

The issue I can see with 9 conference games is that a particular division lineup will be 5 home games in one cycle and 4 the return, so for the Hawkeyes and Purdue and maybe MSU with annual OOC rivalries, running H-A-H-A-…, they’ll want those to offset, Home when they have 4 Home in conference and Away when they have 5 Home in conference … which is easiest to do if they tick tock first, then swap.

Brian’s summary is in the zip code of what I was suggesting, but I would alter it to an extent.

The league clearly has a desire to integrate new members, by having them play all of the other members reasonably often. It also has a desire to preserve rivalries that already exist. Those goals are in tension, because the more you protect, the fewer games are available for non-locked teams to play each other.

Brian’s math assumed that, in my proposal, every team has four locked games. That, I believe, is more than necessary — given that no Big Ten team (in the current 14-team league) has more than two teams that it has played every year. It would be passing strange that as the league grows to 18 or 20, suddenly there is a need to protect more than you did historically. Each time the league has grown, more annual rivalries have been given up than added.

Brian made an attempt to list unneeded rivalries in his system, but I think he exaggerated, for instance:

2. E – PSU, RU, MD, UVA, UNC, Duke

Again, many preserved rivalries plus eastern partners for PSU.

Unneeded games – RU against UVA and UNC, PSU versus UVA, UNC and Duke

Rutgers has no particular history against any of those teams except Penn State. As I noted upthread, Maryland had already made the decision to relinquish annual games against the rest of the ACC, so it would be a bit odd if the Terps now said, “We have to play them every year.”

So all I am really saying is: make a list of what actually needs to be protected, and let the rest float, which thereby gives every team more regular access to every other team. What games should be protected is debatable, and certainly a very desirable discussion. I am sure that will be the main argument when and if this actually happens in the Big Ten.

Now, it is fairly apparent that Brian’s static system works. If you delete the unneeded rivalries (however you define “unneeded”), and let them float, it still works, but a team like GT or Rutgers sees the rest of the Big Ten more often, and vice versa.

That is really the essence of my idea: protect what you need to protect, and no more.

“It would be passing strange that as the league grows to 18 or 20, suddenly there is a need to protect more than you did historically.”

It seems quite normal to me. As the league grows, the average frequency of the *unprotected* games drops. I wouldn’t be thrilled about the Illibuck not being played every year, but if it was four years on, two years off, or two years on, two years off, that’s easier to accept than it not being played for four years straight.

So having to protect games wasn’t a big historical issue because for forty years, it wasn’t hard to do. It only arose quite recently, in the past two decades, with the first of the four newbies joined the conference after four decades of stability. Some schools felt at the time that the Big Ten didn’t always get that scheduling right. It became a bigger issue and one that in some quarters it is argued strongly that they didn’t get right when the Big Ten went to divisions.

As far as I can understand your argument, its that the schools with good reason to be concerned that they will end up being screwed by rotating the divisions on a seat of the pants ad-hoc should just trust the Big Ten to get it right the next time they have a go at it. At least with the various division lineups and rotating divisions, they can fight to avoid being screwed when the structure is being established, rather than just trusting that they’ll end up doing OK when the schedules are actually drawn up.

As far as I can understand your argument, its that the schools with good reason to be concerned that they will end up being screwed by rotating the divisions on a seat of the pants ad-hoc should just trust the Big Ten to get it right the next time they have a go at it.

I hadn’t considered that angle at all. For the sake of present discussion, I assume that the Big Ten can be trusted to A) implement whatever is agreed to; B) equitably allocate whatever is left to the league’s discretion. (Of course, it could be that, based on past experience, the ADs will want to spell out matters that were previously left unspecified.)

If the league actually can’t be trusted to do that, it’s a whole new angle I hadn’t thought about, but it’s not a concern I have ever heard to any significant degree. For what it’s worth, some of my fellow Michigan fans think Delany deliberately wrote an anti-Michigan schedule. I am not buying it.

“If the league actually can’t be trusted to do that, it’s a whole new angle I hadn’t thought about, but it’s not a concern I have ever heard to any significant degree. For what it’s worth, some of my fellow Michigan fans think Delany deliberately wrote an anti-Michigan schedule. I am not buying it.”

It doubt its an issue that the school up north is going to have to lose much sleep over ~ when the conference dropped down to eight conference games in the mid-80’s and started skipping the whole round robin, its not like the Buckeyes or the school up north had any substantial reason to complain about the scheduling in the late 80’s, and that is on top of that drop to eight being in their interest in the first place.

“Brian’s summary is in the zip code of what I was suggesting, but I would alter it to an extent.”

That seems reasonable since it was your system.

“Brian’s math assumed that, in my proposal, every team has four locked games.”

I gave them all the same number for simplicity. Why list a bunch of options when once makes it clear? I realize you allowed/intended a varying number for each team. I chose 4 because several schools I listed had 4. Going smaller would have been an odd choice.

“That, I believe, is more than necessary”

And many of us have disagreed with you about the number.

“It would be passing strange that as the league grows to 18 or 20, suddenly there is a need to protect more than you did historically.”

Not to me. As half the league becomes newbies, it’s even more natural to want to preserve rivalries. Besides, I think you’ve been too binary in your thinking. You’ve said any rivalry that hasn’t always been preserved holds no value now. I’d say that previous lost rivalries were because the B10 valued other things more and because they still stayed frequent (as PSU was added). The B10 didn’t want to lose WI/IA, they just wanted balance a little more. Now they want to preserve rivalries more, so WI is going back west.

Rutgers has no particular history against any of those teams except Penn State. As I noted upthread, Maryland had already made the decision to relinquish annual games against the rest of the ACC, so it would be a bit odd if the Terps now said, “We have to play them every year.””

1. MD is the only other school in easy driving distance for RU, and proximity drives rivalries. As for Duke, many of their students come from NJ and they have a ton of alumni in NYC. The RU/Duke game seems fairly natural to me.

2. You saying something doesn’t mean the world agrees. MD decided they needed more money slightly more than they needed to play those ACC teams. They didn’t suddenly decide those teams meant nothing to them. Everyone but you in the B10 thinks it is natural for MD to annually play some/all of their former ACC mates that join the B10. Some history is better than none. I promise the MD AD would ask for it to happen.

I really wonder if those folks who want less protected games in order to play everyone else more have thought through the math.

For instance, with 10 conference games in a 20 school league, protecting 3 games and rotating the rest means you face the non-protected schools 7/16th of the time. Protecting 2 games and rotating the rest means you face the non-protected schools 8/17th of the time. That’s a 3.3% increase in frequency. That’s 1 extra game vs. each non-protected school every 30 years, or one extra HaH series every 60 years. 1 extra game every 30 years against Rutgers, GTech, or some other B10 school that I have don’t consider different from any other isn’t worth killing off any half-way decent rivalry for, IMHO. Would it mean that some series that aren’t natural rivalries would be protected annually if there are 3 or 4 protected games for everyone? Sure, but what’s the harm in that? If I don’t consider 8 schools to be different from one another in terms of fan fervor, does it matter if I play 1 annually and the other 7 a little less rather than all 8 equally?

I was looking at a difference somewhat more dramatic than that. Let’s consider Florida State. Of the teams considered likely Big Ten switchers, FSU did not regularly play any of them until they joined the ACC in 1992. (I am excluding UF and Miami, neither of which is frequently mentioned as a likely Big Ten add.)

Assume a 20-team Big Ten and 10 conference games per year. If you put FSU in a static five-team pod, they have 6 games available vs. the rest of the conference. It would take six years for every team not in FSU’s pod to play at least one home & home with them.

If you protect Georgia Tech and no more,(*) they have 9 games available vs. the rest of the conference. It would take four years, rather than six, for every other B1G team to play a home & home with FSU.

Whatever denominator you use, that’s much better than a 3.3% improvement, in terms of giving every team a recurring trip to Florida, and getting Florida State on every B1G team’s schedule, which I believe would be a high priority goal in the scenario where FSU joins the league.

In one scenario suggested above (not by me), Purdue would share a pod with Maryland, Rutgers, Penn State, and Notre Dame, meaning that 30 percent of its annual conference schedule would consist of recurring games with teams it has no historical affinity with. I have to think that, given the choice, many Purdue fans would prefer to let those games float among the rest of the conference.

Now, I understand that no system is perfect, but the imperfections usually come from not being able to satisfy every constraint, not from introducing new constraints (i.e., annual games vs. Maryland, Rutgers and Penn State) that no one asked for or wanted. Why do that, when you don’t ahve to?

However, the odds that the B10 would have FSU have 1 permanent series while Iowa has 3 are essentially nil. The B10 has always had the same number of protected series for everyone, so the question is between 2 protected series (where a lot of meaningful rivalries would not be protected), 3 protected series (where almost all rivalries would be protected), or maybe 4 protected series (where any rivalry of any significance is protected).

Oh, and I’m against pods. Just have protected series and rotate if the conference gets to 20.

… the odds that the B10 would have FSU have 1 permanent series while Iowa has 3 are essentially nil. The B10 has always had the same number of protected series for everyone…

Once you get to a 20-team Big Ten, the league will obviously be doing many things it has never done before; the only question is which ones.

There aren’t precisely three schools that make sense as FSU’s annual rivals. After you get past Georgia Tech (the closest geographically), there aren’t two schools that make sense, at the cost of seeing the rest of the league less often.

Consider Northwestern: after Illinois, their next most frequently played rivalries are Wisconsin and Minnesota, games no one has proposed to lock. They’ve played the rest of the original B1G with fairly consistent frequency, so there just aren’t two particular games (after Illinois) that it makes particular sense to elevate to a privileged status above all the rest.

I really think you’re underestimating the value of at least a basic level of consistency or familiarity. It sounds crazy but I think most people would prefer to know at least 30% of their team’s schedule off the top of their head.

If FSU has one locked game a year… hell, why not just be Independent with a B1G scheduling agreement? You’re telling us that 3 games is too structured? You’d see every conference member within three years.

We’re very close to agreeing on how to best navigate a 20 Team B1G schedule, but I just don’t see 3 games as being akin to a set of handcuffs. I think FSU would enjoy playing the 3 protected games that I gave them below. (GT, UNC, NEB)

Even if you had varying numbers of protected games among the schools, I don’t think you would cycle FSU through the league noticeably faster.

“Once you get to a 20-team Big Ten, the league will obviously be doing many things it has never done before”

Such as, for instance, petitioning the NCAA to allow each school to play an extra kickoff classic game every 4 years.

Anyway, actually, I think you’re just displaying your ignorance of what other schools consider important. Northwestern fans definitely want to play Iowa far more than 50% of the time. They would be our second-most important series. We definitely don’t consider all games other than against Illinois to be the same. MSU’s AD considers a trip to Chicagoland every other year (that is, playing Northwestern annually) to be their second-highest priority.

As for FSU, I fully expect the B10 to set up 2 annual series between them and 2 of the other 4 kings (probably UNL and PSU, though maybe UNL and Michigan if PSU-UNL and PSU-OSU are still protected as annual series) for TV purposes.

Again, have you thought through the math? Sure 3% is less often (as is 7%), but what makes even less sense to me (as a Northwestern fan) than elevating some schools above others is sacrificing the Iowa series so that we can have an extra HAH with some random B10 school that we don’t care as much about every 30 or 60 years. To me, it _defnitely_ makes sense to elevate the Iowa game at the expense of an HaH with UMD or IU every 30 or 60 years. As a Michigan fan, are you willing to sacrifice the Jug game so that you can have an extra HaH with Duke, Rutgers, and GTech every 30 or 60 years? I know that Minnesota wouldn’t be willing.

I think you’re just displaying your ignorance of what other schools consider important. Northwestern fans definitely want to play Iowa far more than 50% of the time.

You kiddn’ me? Of course I know that. I’m just saying that — assuming the Big Ten gets to 20 members — which I neither favor nor am predicting — it is not realistically possible to lock Northwestern/Iowa. I haven’t seen any suggested structure that does so, unless it ruthlessly ignores many other equally important rivalries.

That does lead some fans to suggest two divisions, comprising “Old Big Ten,” “New Big Ten.” If you want to believe they’d do that, go ahead and keep believing.

“I’m just saying that — assuming the Big Ten gets to 20 members — which I neither favor nor am predicting — it is not realistically possible to lock Northwestern/Iowa.”

Why not? 4 locked rivals in a 10-game schedule. No divisions. Play everyone else equally. It’s about as realistic as anything else out there.

Mathematically, it is possible. But Northwestern’s four most common Big Ten opponents are: Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Indiana. Iowa’s four most common opponents are Wisconsin, Minnesota, Purdue, and Indiana.

We already know that if Iowa is asked which games it wants, the top three are going to be Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Assuming they lock four, would those two schools request each other as #4, and would the ADs agree to that? Quite a few teams would like a bi-annual game in Chicago; not just Iowa.

More importantly, would they lock four? In the 11-game format (pre-Nebraska), the Big Ten protected two, not four, rivalries. Northwestern’s protected games were Illinois and Purdue. Would they go to four locked games, when two was considered sufficient before?

We also know that most schools in the conference want to see the “kings” as much as possible. It’s beyond rational argument that UM-MSU and UM-OSU are going to be locked. If they go to four locked games, Minnesota will surely get one of the remaining two slots against Michigan. Which fourth school will “win the lottery,” and get Michigan at home every other year? Do you think the rest of the ADs will believe that is a good idea?

“We already know that if Iowa is asked which games it wants, the top three are going to be Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Assuming they lock four, would those two schools request each other as #4, and would the ADs agree to that? Quite a few teams would like a bi-annual game in Chicago; not just Iowa.”

Let’s try it as a thought experiment with the 12 teams. These are my guesses at the top 4 choices for each school to play, roughly in order (last one is my least confident pick). If I struggle for 4, I’ll add teams that want to play them.

I could also drop IN/IL instead of IA/NW to fill the last spots for RU and MD.

Going to 20 makes more changes depending on the 20. UVA, UNC and Duke would all play each other. GT might play the NC schools while MD plays UVA. FSU would get GT and 3 others. ND should get in with PU, RU, MSU and MI.

Not many feel forced here except IN/FSU and most requests are satisfied. I don’t see many conflicts of somebody having a clear preference that was denied. There is probably a better set, but this is a decent start.

I don’t see many conflicts of somebody having a clear preference that was denied.

I think you’ve covered all of the recurring and hotly desired rivalries, and most of the others make some sense: Rutgers-Duke is inspired.

But if they finally manage to get Notre Dame into the conference after 20+ years of courtship, would they assign the Irish to Rutgers and Maryland every year? I’m having trouble imagining the conversation where the ADs would think that was the best idea.

I think there might be some typos: you have Maryland on Virginia’s list, but not vice versa.

I was thinking ND would want the east coast access so they play in NYC or DC every year.

“I certainly can see why the Irish would be fond of that. I’m just wondering if the rest of the league would be willing to placate them to that extent.”

They are sending OSU and MI east to play MD and RU to build them up now. Why wouldn’t they be willing to send ND instead, especially if that was the deal required to get ND to join?

The two strongest B10 rivalries with ND were kept and nobody but PSU really has any history with MD and RU. Besides, everyone acknowledges that ND has the largest eastern fan base. Everyone plays the other 15 teams 40% of the time, so they’ll all get their east coast access. Feel free to show me a better list that is reasonable and at least somewhat balanced.

@Brian: They are sending OSU and MI east to play MD and RU to build them up now. Why wouldn’t they be willing to send ND instead, especially if that was the deal required to get ND to join?

As I understand it, they are not merely trying to build up MD and RU, although that is part of it; they are also trying to give OSU and UM access to a region where they have a lot of fans (compared to the rest of the Big Ten). Beyond that, an east-west split also allows the western teams to play each other every year, which they want. So the same decision pleases many people at once.

Maryland and Rutgers are “projects”; Notre Dame is a king. I imagine the whole league would want them on their schedule. Beyond that, if the word got out that the league gave the Irish any scheduling favors, the fan reaction would be…unprintable.

And that’s even assuming the Irish would demand that. In a Big Ten that ND would feel compelled to join, you’ve probably got Georgia Tech, Penn State, Florida State, and North Carolina too—all teams the Irish have some history with. They probably could have had Maryland and Rutgers on their schedule almost anytime they wanted, but rarely scheduled them.

Feel free to show me a better list that is reasonable and at least somewhat balanced.

Given the premise of locking four games per team, I think you’ve done an excellent job. If I could improve it, it wouldn’t be by much. You admitted yourself that, in some cases, the fourth team is something of a coin flip. I don’t disagree with that.

“As I understand it, they are not merely trying to build up MD and RU, although that is part of it; they are also trying to give OSU and UM access to a region where they have a lot of fans (compared to the rest of the Big Ten).”

They don’t want to give OSU and MI access to fans for their own good, but to help the BTN.

“Beyond that, an east-west split also allows the western teams to play each other every year, which they want. So the same decision pleases many people at once.”

And letting ND play MD and RU wouldn’t?

“Maryland and Rutgers are “projects”; Notre Dame is a king. I imagine the whole league would want them on their schedule.”

Who is them? Plenty of people don’t want RU or MD on their schedule. As for ND, everyone still would get them at least 40% of the time. The same is true of FSU, OSU, MI, PSU and NE (whichever they aren’t locked with. That’s 2.4 kings for everyone every year before considering the locked games with kings.

“Beyond that, if the word got out that the league gave the Irish any scheduling favors, the fan reaction would be…unprintable.”

Not when everyone else got favors. It’s only if they got special treatment that people would complain.

We already know that teams want to play the kings as much as they can. If Delany actually manages to hook ND, the next question will be, “How can we get them on the whole league’s schedule, as often as the math allows?” Locking them with two of the league’s newest members probably wouldn’t be the first idea that comes to mind.

Anyhow, your premise was that Notre Dame might request this, which would be odd, in that the Irish have so seldom scheduled those two schools.

Notre Dame vs. practically anybody is a top media draw, so the league would probably not want to concentrate their access to two teams. If the Irish ever join (about as likely as me being the next pope), I’d be surprised if that’s the solution they arrive at.

“We already know that teams want to play the kings as much as they can.”

Many teams want to play certain kings more than others. And beyond a minimum number of games, they don’t want too many kings. 6 kings in 20 teams means at least 2.4 king games for everyone each year. Other than rivalries, I’m not sure how many more kings games most teams want. Only NW and UVA didn’t have a locked king in my list, meaning all the other non-kings play at least 3 king games while they get 2.4. The kings vary from 2 to 3.2 king games per year.

“If Delany actually manages to hook ND, the next question will be, “How can we get them on the whole league’s schedule, as often as the math allows?” Locking them with two of the league’s newest members probably wouldn’t be the first idea that comes to mind.”

Everyone knows ND would get at least 2 locked games (PU and MSU). Who else would they want? There are lots of options. RU, MD, GT, FSU and MI all come to mind. The first 4 offer unique east coast access, but maybe they feel MD is redundant with Navy and want GT instead. That’s doable.

“Anyhow, your premise was that Notre Dame might request this, which would be odd, in that the Irish have so seldom scheduled those two schools.”

I had to make choices to fill out the grid. It’s not hard to swap it to RU and GT or some other pair.

“Notre Dame vs. practically anybody is a top media draw, so the league would probably not want to concentrate their access to two teams.”

Right. Look how the B10 has forced PU and MSU to stop playing ND every year so other teams can get a shot now. As you say, it doesn’t matter who ND plays so why not let them play a few of their favorites annually? The other schools can play the other kings.

Brian has now arrived at something very close to the idea I am proposing — namely, that it is better to give schools the rivalries they actually want.

The only difference is, he tops up each school’s list with four rivals, regardless of whether four is the number that’s wanted. For Minnesota, four is perfect: they get exactly the schools they prefer (Wisc, Neb, Iowa, Mich). It’s also perfect for Purdue: they get Note Dame, Indiana, Northwestern, and Illinois.

For some, four is too few. The ACC refugees would all (probably) like to keep playing each other frequently. But if you have six schools (GT, FSU, MD, VA, NC, Duke), each can lock up to three others, not five. (Some, in fact, don’t even get three in Brian’s scheme.)

Notre Dame has 34 or more meetings with Purdue, MSU, NW, GT, and Mich. Instead, they get just two of these, with the other two slots going to schools (Maryland, Rutgers) whom they’ve seldom played.

For some, four is too many. Indiana and Florida State are the obvious ones, with each given a rivalry with the other, for no other reason than to give each school an equal number. But the proposed Michigan-FSU locked rivalry, though no doubt a good one, is just one of many plausible fourth games you could have given to either school.

It is a short step from there, to locking only what is necessary; and see what flexibility this gives the league. There is no need for the unlocked games to be played with equal frequency. You can increase the frequency of classic B1G vs B1G games, classic ACC vs ACC games, the frequency of king vs king games, or whatever you want. Notre Dame can be rotated through the league with equal frequency, or it can see the kings more frequently, or it can see its historical rivals more frequently. The options are numerous.

In contrast, where you lock pods or lock a specific number of rivals, you wind up with contrived ahistorical rivalries, with others relegated to second-tier status, because the putative 16, 18, or 20-team league just doesn’t break down into these even-numbered groupings. It does for some teams, but it doesn’t work for all of them.

“Brian has now arrived at something very close to the idea I am proposing”

Maybe I did, but my goal was to find four locked games per team. That was the topic you and Richard were debating, including whether there would be fighting over certain schools and such. I just wanted to provide an actual list to look at to see how it might work.

It’s your job to show a list for your plan. You did it before but then disavowed it because we all jumped on you about it being too minimalist. Until you do, you’re just wasting space with this topic. You keep talking about it but refuse to produce this plan so we can critique it. How can we evaluate how much it would be better if you refuse to show it?

“For some, four is too few. The ACC refugees would all (probably) like to keep playing each other frequently.”

Hold it now. What happened to the argument about how loose the ties of FSU and GT to the rest of the ACC are? What happened to FSU already not liking their ACC schedule? Suddenly they want it back rather than MI every year?

“Notre Dame has 34 or more meetings with Purdue, MSU, NW, GT, and Mich. Instead, they get just two of these, with the other two slots going to schools (Maryland, Rutgers) whom they’ve seldom played.”

Which I explained, and I continue to wait for you to propose a better plan. But that’s not what you do, is it? You argue against the specifics of everyone else’s plans but keep yours nebulous so nobody can critique it.

“It is a short step from there, to locking only what is necessary; and see what flexibility this gives the league.”

If it’s such a short step, why do you keep refusing to take it? You’ve been rambling on about your great plan for days/weeks. How come it never shows up on here? Or is it all talk and you don’t actually have a plan?

It’s your job to show a list for your plan. You did it before but then disavowed it because we all jumped on you about it being too minimalist.

I have no preference for the number of rivalries to lock. What I have seen, is that in every plan based on static pods or a fixed number of locked games, inevitably some are “forced,” “made-up,” “fictitious,” or whatever word you would like to use. In some schemes, desired rivalries get kicked to the curb, because the pod isn’t big enough.

So I am wondering, why be in thrall to that? Lock only the ones you really want—whatever they may be. At the point where you’re saying, “I need a fourth locked rival for Indiana: stop.” If it’s not immediately apparent, then it’s not needed (as an annual game).

“For some, four is too few. The ACC refugees would all (probably) like to keep playing each other frequently.”

Hold it now. What happened to the argument about how loose the ties of FSU and GT to the rest of the ACC are? What happened to FSU already not liking their ACC schedule? Suddenly they want it back rather than MI every year?

This was in comparison to the plan you had suggested, where FSU would play Indiana more often than it would play Maryland. My actual view is that if FSU joins the league, the ADs would probably want to spread out access to the Florida market, rather than concentrating it with Michigan and Indiana. Once you erase those two locked games, an extra 20 percent of FSU’s conference slate is freed up. There’s a wide variety of ways those games could be used.

All I was saying was that if you DO lock four FSU games, Indiana and Michigan wouldn’t be two of them. But I don’t think they ought to lock four.

“Notre Dame has 34 or more meetings with Purdue, MSU, NW, GT, and Mich. Instead, they get just two of these, with the other two slots going to schools (Maryland, Rutgers) whom they’ve seldom played.”

Which I explained, and I continue to wait for you to propose a better plan.

Which I did: lock Purdue, and that’s it. From there, the league has numerous options better than yours, for how to schedule Notre Dame’s 10 conference games: rotate the remaining Irish games with equal frequency among members of the league; or give them a predominant rotation among teams they’ve historically played, with a less frequent rotation among the others. Alternatively, lock both Purdue and Michigan State, and do the same.

Your explanation wasn’t crazy, but it was pretty close: no one would come up with Maryland and Rutgers, without the artificial constraint of locking four games per school. Notre Dame as an independent, with its broad scheduling discretion, never did that.

There really is no reason (mathematically or historically) to lock the same number of games per team, nor to put them into equal-size pods. I assume you understand, combinatorially, that when you remove needless constraints from a system, your flexibility increases. “Florida State has to play Indiana every year” is a needless constraint. So is “Purdue has to play Maryland every year.” So is Georgia Tech/Michigan State.

Once you remove those constraints, the league can do whatever it wants with the extra games. If you have a scheduling idea that works with contrived/fictitious annual games, it also works if you remove those games, and instead use the new found flexibility to satisfy other needs, whether it be extra king vs king games, extra “old Big Ten” games, or whatever you would like.

“I was looking at a difference somewhat more dramatic than that. Let’s consider Florida State. Of the teams considered likely Big Ten switchers, FSU did not regularly play any of them until they joined the ACC in 1992. (I am excluding UF and Miami, neither of which is frequently mentioned as a likely Big Ten add.)

Assume a 20-team Big Ten and 10 conference games per year. If you put FSU in a static five-team pod, they have 6 games available vs. the rest of the conference. It would take six years for every team not in FSU’s pod to play at least one home & home with them.

If you protect Georgia Tech and no more,(*) they have 9 games available vs. the rest of the conference. It would take four years, rather than six, for every other B1G team to play a home & home w